Protesters link government’s Palace Museum ‘exhibition’ to memory of bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown

Disputes break out between demonstrators and commuters over planned museum

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Protesters remember the Tiananmen Square crackdown in front of a backdrop of Beijing’s Forbidden City between the Hong Kong and Central MTR stations. Photo: Sam Tsang

Published: 4:15pm, 9 Jan 2017Updated: 12:13pm, 10 Jan 2017

Controversy surrounding a proposed Hong Kong museum project continued to snowball on Monday as demonstrators took advantage of a government “exhibition” depicting Beijing’s Palace Museum to remember the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown.

The Hong Kong government has been slammed with public criticism since Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor on December 23 announced the city would build its own version of Beijing’s Palace Museum at the West Kowloon Cultural District, without going through a public consultation exercise.

The government has since denied that a massive wall display of Beijing’s Palace Museum between Central and Hong Kong MTR stations was an advertisement for the museum plan. The government instead labelled it as an “exhibition”.

However, taking advantage of the publicity surrounding the museum controversy and the imagery between the MTR stations, Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China staged a protest urging Beijing to vindicate the 1989 student movement and release all political prisoners. The alliance organises an annual candlelight vigil to commemorate the crackdown.

“When we see the palace, what pops up in our mind is not the relics, but the tanks outside it,” alliance secretary Lee Cheuk-yan said. Lee was previously banned from entering the mainland following the crackdown.