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Move June 4 museum to US, says Tiananmen protest leader

蘋果日報 2021/06/02 17:57


The world’s sole museum dedicated to the memory of Tiananmen Square victims should move beyond Hong Kong shores and set up a second venue in the United States, a democracy activist who survived the Beijing crackdown in 1989 has said amid a government investigation about licensing issues.
Wang Dan, one of the student leaders in the Tiananmen Square protests of 32 years ago, suggested opening a June 4 museum in the U.S. on the 35th anniversary of the massacre in 2024 as a way of preserving history.
He floated the idea after the Hong Kong government’s Food and Environmental Hygiene Department on Tuesday paid a surprise visit to the local June 4 Museum and took down the personal details of a staff member.
Department officers alleged that the museum was operating as a place of public entertainment without applying for a license. On Wednesday, the museum operator, Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movement, announced closing its premises until further notice.
The alliance opened the June 4 Museum in 2014. It is the only museum in the world marking the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in the Chinese capital of Beijing.
On Tuesday night, Wang told attendees at an online commemorative event that the museum in Hong Kong would not be able to continue running under a political atmosphere filled with fear.
Wang added that it was his obligation to restore the truth of the 1989 protests and advocated creating another June 4 museum in the States.
He was speaking to more than 50 activists, scholars and politicians from Europe, Hong Kong, Japan, North America and Taiwan at the virtual gathering.
Participants in Taiwan came from different political parties. They included Taiwan’s representative to Germany Shieh Jhy-wey, spokesperson for the presidential office Kolas Yotaka, deputy secretary general Lin Fei-fan of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, Zheng Zhaoxin from Kuomintang and a number of legislators.
Some of the event’s participants expressed worries that the democracy movement in Hong Kong was under great pressure with the implementation of national security laws.
Former Hong Kong lawmaker Emily Lau, who used to chair the city’s Democratic Party, described the local situation as very bad and said that she was not sure how long the June 4 Museum could last.
Hong Kong people were beginning to self-censor out of fear, Lau said, but she believed that they would not give up and would persevere no matter what challenges lay ahead.
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