Danish Sculptor Condemns HK University’s Order to Remove His Commemorative Statue of Tiananmen Massacre

The eight-meter-high (26-foot-high) "Pillar of Shame" by Danish sculptor Jens Galschiot to pay tribute to the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing on June 4, 1989, is seen before it is set to be removed at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) in Hong Kong, China, on Oct. 12, 2021. Tyrone Siu/Reuters

HONG KONG—The Danish sculptor of a statue that commemorates pro-democracy protesters killed during China’s Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 has accused a leading Hong Kong university of “mafia” style tactics over its order to have it removed.

Jens Galschiot loaned the eight-meter-high (26-foot-high), two-tonne (2.2-ton) copper sculpture called “Pillar of Shame” to a local civil society group, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, in perpetuity.