A virtual museum to house the memorabilia of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in the digital realm is hoped to be built as the current physical site might be shut down once the national security law is enacted in Hong Kong.

Mak Hoi-wah, chairman of the June 4th Museum’s management committee, told Apple Daily in an interview that he was worried the museum’s current location in Mongkok will be forced to shut down because of the national security law customized for Hong Kong. The law to be imposed by Beijing bypassing the city’s legislature will ban acts and activities related to secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign interference in local affairs.

Mak said he hoped the virtual museum named Tiananmen Massacre Memorial Museum can be built to preserve the historical artefacts and academic discussions in the digital realm. A Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign aiming to raise HK$1.5 million ($193,545) has already been launched to move the project forward. The virtual museum will be offered as an open source and shareable in order to promote interaction with other online museums and digital human rights projects around the world.

The museum was founded by the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, organizers of the annual vigil at Victoria Park since 1990.

This year’s event was banned by the police in the name of the coronavirus pandemic but organizers turned up at Victoria Park and they were joined by thousands of people. The event on June 4 concluded peacefully but the police said it would prosecute the alliance’s chair Lee Cheuk-yan, vice-chair Albert Ho and secretary Richard Tsoi for “inciting others to knowingly take part in an unauthorized assembly.”

Mak said the online museum will feature oral history of witnesses’ account of events, a detailed organization of timeline and events as well as in-depth analysis of the development of the 1989 protests and political power struggle of the Chinese Communist Party during the movement. The content will be translated into English in order to reach a global audience and contrast the narrative controlled by Beijing.

“It is very important to help us not only to remember the June 4 massacre but also to reconstruct the truth,” said Mak, condemning the CCP’s constant practice of rewriting history and some sectors in Hong Kong have already adopted the practice of self-censorship. “[The CCP] only looks at history from the party’s own perspective and ideology, rather than looking at history objectively.”

He also hoped that the virtual museum could connect the 1989 protests with Hong Kong’s political movement for further comparative studies.

Alliance chair Lee said the virtual museum will play an important role in keeping the June 4 stories alive even if one day the alliance will have to lose the museum in Hong Kong. “CCP might be able to shut down our museum, but not to suppress our thoughts,” said Lee.

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