Bust of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo erected outside Hong Kong’s Times Square in bid to build support for June 4 vigil
Support for annual event commemorating Tiananmen Square crackdown has been dwindling in the city in recent years amid a rise in anti-mainland sentiments
In a move to reawaken Hongkongers’ waning support for the upcoming 29th anniversary of the Tiananmen Crackdown, a group of activists erected a bust of the late Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese pro-democracy icon, at a shopping district popular among mainlanders on Thursday.
On June 4 every year since 1990, a candlelight vigil is held in the city’s Victoria Park to mark the anniversary of the bloody anti-government crackdown in 1989 in Beijing, which followed large-scale street protests and weeks-long sit-ins and hunger strikes in Tiananmen Square in a bid for greater freedom.
But in recent years, support for the vigil has been falling, with Hong Kong student leaders again vowing to snub participation amid a rise of localist and anti-mainland sentiments.
“I hope the art piece can also encourage people to participate in the vigil [on Monday],” Tsang, a pioneer in introducing creative props to the protest movement in Hong Kong, said.
Tsang said they would move the bust to the vigil on Monday and bring it back to Times Square after that, where it would remain until the anniversary of Liu Xiaobo’s death.