HONG KONG—A Hong Kong university has banned students from erecting a statue that honours victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, as tensions simmer over public mourning in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory on the 21st anniversary of the bloodshed.
The Chinese University of Hong Kong said in a statement Wednesday the school “must maintain its principle of political neutrality.”
The head of the university’s student union, which made the statue request, accused the administration of being hypocritical, noting the university’s president, Lawrence Lau, wasn’t neutral because he serves on advisory bodies to both the Hong Kong and central Chinese governments.
China’s government has never fully disclosed what happened when the military crushed the weeks-long, student-led protests on the night of June 3-4, 1989, possibly killing thousands of students, activists and ordinary citizens. It has long maintained that the protests were a “counterrevolutionary riot.”
“A government suppressing unarmed citizens is not a matter of political ideology. It’s a matter of right or wrong,” student union president Eric Lai said in a phone interview Thursday.
Chinese University’s staff union also lashed out at the administration, accusing it of self-censorship and pandering to authority. “As an institution of higher learning dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and truth, Chinese University should maintain so-called ‘neutrality’ by facing historical facts bravely,” the union said in a statement Thursday.
Lai said the student union will defy the administration and move the 21-foot (6.4-metre) -tall “Goddess of Democracy” statue and a large carving depicting the 1989 military eviction to the Chinese University campus on Friday.
The two pieces by U.S.-based New Zealand artist Chen Weiming have become symbols in Hong Kong’s fight to retain its right to mourn the Tiananmen victims — a taboo subject on the mainland. The former British colony is promised Western-style civil liberties as part of its special political status under Chinese rule.
In Beijing, the leader of the Tiananmen Mothers group held a brief candlelight vigil Thursday night at the spot in western Beijing where her son was killed in the crackdown. A line of police kept the media away, and Ding Zilin and her husband were surrounded by strangers who appeared to be blocking any filming of the event.
“I didn’t know any of them,” the husband, Jiang Jielian, said afterward by phone. “We went there alone.” He said Ding fainted afterward but was fine. Security was tight around an empty Tiananmen Square on Thursday night. Earlier Thursday, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman reiterated the government’s position on the 1989 protests.
Asked by a reporter about the Tiananmen demonstrations, Jiang Yu said, “About the political issue you mentioned … there has already been a clear conclusion.”
“The development path chosen has been in the clear interest of the Chinese people,” she said.
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