‘Pillar of Shame’ Tiananmen memorial erected outside European Parliament | CNN
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A model of the “Pillar of Shame,” which was controversially removed from a Hong Kong university in 2021, has gone on display in front of the European Parliament in Brussels.

Depicting a heap of contorted bodies and screaming faces, the statue was unveiled Tuesday as part of an exhibition of “forbidden art” that organizers said had been censored or “deemed subversive” by Hong Kong and mainland China.

The exhibition was hosted by Jens Galschiøt, the Danish artist behind the famous sculpture, and Kira Marie Peter-Hansen, a member of the European Parliament (MEP). A further six MEPs, including representatives from each of the parliament’s five largest political coalitions, were listed as co-hosts.

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    9 months ago

    @turkishdelight

    Chinese censors remove video showing off Tiananmen massacre medal

    In the video posted March 18 to the official account of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force on the video-sharing platform Bilibili, a woman clad in a camouflage uniform holds up a medal she said was presented to her father after he was among the troops that entered Beijing in early June 1989 to put down weeks of peaceful, student-led protests in Tiananmen Square.

    “My father is a retired soldier," she says, according to subtitles on screenshots published by several media outlets including Taiwan’s Liberty Times newspaper, Radio Taiwan International, and the citizen journalist X account “Mr Li is not your teacher.”

    The “Defender of the Capital” honor was handed out to soldiers and other enforcers of martial law in Beijing, which was ordered by late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping on May 20 and defied by protesters and hunger strikers, who remained on Tiananmen Square.

    The video soon started to garner comments referencing the killing of civilians by the People’s Liberation Army on the night of June 3-4, 1989.

    “You’re bragging about how the People’s Liberation Army killed our compatriots?” said one comment, while another said the medal was fit for a “butcher,” according to screenshots of the now-deleted video.

    “A ‘medal of honor’ won for massacring unarmed students on behalf of a dictator,” wrote another.