Mainland Chinese student admits to sedition in Hong Kong over plan to hang banner criticising seizure of Tiananmen Square crackdown statue

National security police seized statue marking 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in May amid ongoing investigation into disbanded group behind candlelight vigil

Zeng Yuxuan pleads guilty to sedition after arranging for nine-meter-tall lithograph to be publicly displayed in call for Pillar of Shame sculpture to be returned to artist

Reading Time:3 minutes

A mainland Chinese student in Hong Kong has admitted to sedition after attempting to join a campaign to reunite the Pillar of Shame sculpture with its creator. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

Published: 9:19pm, 11 Sep 2023Updated: 2:25am, 12 Sep 2023

A student from mainland China has admitted breaching Hong Kong’s colonial-era sedition law by planning to display a giant banner criticising police’s seizure of a sculpture remembering the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Zeng Yuxuan, also known as Annika Tsang, pleaded guilty on Monday to attempting or preparing to commit a seditious act, after she arranged for the nine-meter-tall (29-foot-tall) lithograph to be unfurled in a crowded district with the help of a former student leader of the 1989 democratic movement.

West Kowloon Court heard the intended flash-mob display would have formed part of an international campaign initiated by Danish sculptor Jens Galschiøt to protest against Hong Kong police’s removal of the Pillar of Shame, which he created.

The force’s national security unit confiscated the artwork in May amid an ongoing investigation into the disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, the group behind the city’s candlelight vigil held annually in Victoria Park on June 4 between 1990 and 2019.

Workers remove the Pillar of Shame sculpture from the University of Hong Kong back in 2021. Photo: Sam Tsang

The giant banner, emblazoned with an image of the eight-metre statue, said the 1989 crackdown was a “massacre” and that “the old cannot kill the young forever”.

Select Voice

Choose your listening speed

Get through articles 2x faster

1.25x

250 WPM

Slow

Average

Fast

00:0000:00

1.25x