The Pillar of Shame, the politically sensitive sculpture commemorating the Tiananmen Square crackdown of 1989, has to move and activists fear it may end up in an out-of-the-way spot.
The two-tonne pillar, a gift from Danish sculptor Jens Galschiot, was carried to the University of Hong Kong by students in 1997 after being shown at the annual candle-light vigil in Victoria Park.
The concrete statue, depicting 50 torn and twisted bodies, was erected at the university's Haking Wong Podium in 1998. But it will be moved in November to make way for campus expansion work, and the university has yet to decide where it will go.
'The pillar symbolises Hong Kong students' support for the democracy movement in mainland China and thus it shall continue to be exhibited on the campus,' said Richard Choi Yiu-cheong, vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, who helped carry the pillar to the campus after hours of skirmishing with police and university guards.
'We hope HKU will not make use of the construction project to put the Pillar of Shame in an unnoticed nook.'
Under the HK$2.5 billion expansion, the university plans to extend its campus westwards with three new teaching blocks to accommodate 40 per cent more students by 2012. It will build a University Street from the uncovered portion of the Haking Wong Podium to connect the old site with the new campus. The street will also give access to the central gate of HKU station when the MTR Corp completes the West Island Line in 2014.
