As China continues its onslaught on democracy in Hong Kong, Hong Kong University’s ‘pillar of shame’ erected to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre has been removed by the University’s academic authorities. Suzanne Sataline had this information in Aljazeera. Here is an excerpt

The construction crane arrived hours after dark, along with tarps, gold-coloured plastic fencing, and a steel shipping container. As electric drills whirred, more than a dozen workers in hard hats dismantled an iconic statute before dawn at the University of Hong Kong.

The eight-metre (26-foot) Pillar of Shame – a thin tower of 50 contorted and frightened faces painted in a vivid hue of earthy rust – depicted the massacre of hundreds of pro-democracy protesters by Chinese troops at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

To many Hong Kongers, the statue’s removal was a callous and ironic blow and justified with strange excuses amid a continuing crackdown on Hong Kong’s own democracy movement.

Continue reading here