Unveiling of Pillar of Shame!
On Wednesday 25 May at 1:30 pm , we invite you to the unveiling of the sculpture Pillar of Shame in the University Garden to the Faculty of Law at UiO. The Pillar of Shame, or the Pillar of Shame, honors the victims of some of the most outrageous human rights violations of our time: the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and the attack on freedom of expression in Hong Kong. In China today, it is forbidden to talk about the massacre in the Tiananmen Square, and the authorities are doing everything they can to erase the history from the memory of the people.
The original sculpture, which it will exhibit is a version of, was exhibited in Hong Kong from 1997. On December 23, 2021, the sculpture was removed from the University. This came in the wake of several harsh sentences for violations of Hong Kong's new security law against people who have criticized China.
Read more about Shame Support here: Pillar of Shame (galschiot.com)
Program:
Speech by the artist Jens Galschiøt
Speech by Hong Kong activist Glacier Kwong
Speech from the Hong Kong Committee in Norway
Speech from UiO
Musical elements from Samuel Brandt
The speaker is John Peder Egenæs, Amnesty International
-The sculpture Pillar of Shame will be exhibited in the University Garden until 23 June
-The unveiling is a collaboration between Amnesty International, the Hong Kong Committee in Norway and the Oslo Freedom Forum
Speech of the event:
Good afternoon, I am Jessica Chiu, leader of Hong Kong Committee in Norway. For over thirty years, Hongkongers have shown our solidarity to the fight for democracy in mainland China. In 1989, from mid-May to June 4, there were at least three massive demonstrations in Hong Kong supporting the student-led prodemocractic protests in Beijing, each with over one million people. And hundreds of Hong Kong students, reporters, and individuals travelled to Tiananmen Square to support the students.
At that time, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China was formed. Since 1989, the Hong Kong Alliance has organised an annual candlelight vigil at Victoria Park in Hong Kong. 35 to 180 thousand people gathered peacefully in Hong Kong on June 4 every year regardless of the weather, with cooperation with the police. The candlelight vigil represents our freedom of assembly.
On university campuses in Hong Kong there were monuments of Tiananmen that remind us of the history and the students in Beijing. The Pillar of Shame is one of the most well-known Tiananmen tributes. Between 2008 and 2011, I was a bachelor student at the University of Hong Kong. I walked past the Pillar of Shame, painted in orange, every week. I crossed the Swire bridge every day, in front of my student residency, the Swire Hall. On the bridge, a slogan that commemorates the Tiananmen crackdown was painted. All these monuments are symbols for our freedom of expression.
While Hong Kong has been known as an international financial hub, it has also prided itself as the “conscience of China”. Hong Kong was a place that continued the fight for democracy and justice for people in the city, and for the billion population in mainland China. Hong Kong has been a city carrying the torch for democracy in China.
In 2014, tens of thousands of Hongkongers participated in the umbrella movement demanding universal suffrage, meaning free elections of the Legislative Council and the Chief Executive. Such elections are stated as the ultimate goals in Hong Kong’s mini constitution. 12 prominent activists were convicted of unlawful assembly.
Between April 2019 and February 2020, people in Hong Kong took part in a series of massive demonstrations that first demanded withdrawal of the extradition law amendment bill, and later developed into demanding investigation of police violence against protesters and universal suffrage. The largest protests were participated by 1-2 million people. Despite the risk of prosecution and police brutality, people in Hong Kong took to the streets to voice the demand for true democracy.
In 2020 the June 4 candlelight vigil was banned for the first time in 31 years under the pretext of the pandemic. It was announced that 3000 riot police would be deployed. Despite the ban and the threat by the police, in the evening of June 4, tens of thousands of people in Hong Kong gathered in Victoria Park for a candlelight vigil. People in Hong Kong knew that the days for commemorating June 4th were coming to an end.
By the end of June 2020, Beijing bypassed the Legislative Council and promulgated Hong Kong’s national security law, with punishments ranging from 3 years to life imprisonment.
The national security law has removed basic human rights that people in Hong Kong used to enjoy, including the freedom to protest, to assembly, freedom of the press, and freedom of expression. The phrase “June 4th Tiananmen”, which has been censored in China, is now a sensitive topic in Hong Kong.
The authorities have also used a colonial era law to suppress our freedom of speech and freedom of publication. Editors and board members of the independent media outlet Stand News were arrested and accused of conspiring to publish seditious material. Publishing a children’s picture book about sheep is seditious, according to Beijing’s puppets in Hong Kong.
In 2021, the candlelight vigil was banned again.
Chow Hang-tung, who co-chaired the Hong Kong Alliance, posted on social media urging people to commemorate the event privately by lighting a candle. Chow was later arrested for this social media post and sentenced to 15 months behind bars.
Monuments that pay tribute to the victims of Tiananmen have been removed from university campuses in Hong Kong. The University of Hong Kong removed The Pillar of Shame during the Christmas holiday last year for a shameful reason – “based on the latest risk assessment and legal advice". The slogan on the Swire Bridge has been painted over and replaced with potted plants. The once proud “conscience of China”, Hong Kong, is being destroyed by the shameless leaders in Hong Kong.
I will now read an excerpt of the mitigation plea by Chow Hang-tung in the case raised against her for seeking to keep the memory of June 4 alive:
The greatest injustice remains hidden and unmentionable, for who is truly responsible for inciting hundreds of thousands of people to gather in Victoria Park on June 4th, year after year? They are the murderers who killed at will in Beijing 32 years ago. Yet the killers were never punished by any court of law, while those who demand truth and accountability were relentlessly criminalised. This has continued non-stop for 32 years in mainland China, and is now also happening in Hong Kong.
With power and law in their hands, the killers think that they can control the discourse of right and wrong, guilt and innocence. I, for one, refuse to play along and submit to my so-called guilt. If this country still cares to maintain any resemblance of fairness, let’s put those murderers on trial instead of us. Let’s put those criminals behind bars instead of honouring them as our great leaders. Let the truth of Tiananmen Square be freely discussed and redress be given to the long suffering Tiananmen Mothers.
That ends the mitigation plea quote. Over 10 000 have been arrested due to their participation in protests in Hong Kong 2019-2020. A large majority have still not had their cases taken to the courts.
In under 3 years, over 1000 people in Hong Kong have become political prisoners.
For the last two years, 183 have been arrested by the national security police. 87 are remanded in custody, with unknown dates of trials, potentially facing lengthy sentences. We will honour their bravery today by reading their names.