Hong Kong museum dedicated to Tiananmen Square crackdown may be forced to move
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 04 June, 2015, 2:37am
UPDATED : Thursday, 04 June, 2015, 2:37am
Jeffie Lam [email protected]
Albert Ho says visitor numbers have dropped. Photo: Nora Tam
Just over a year after it opened to the public, organisers of the world's first permanent museum dedicated to the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown fear it may have to move out of its Tsim Sha Tsui premises.
Albert Ho Chun-yan, chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which runs the museum, said they may have to relocate elsewhere in the long run as the existing 800 sq ft venue at Tsim Sha Tsui's Foo Hoo Centre was too small to provide bilingual show boards.
The owners' corporation of the building had required all museum visitors to register their names at the lobby, which Ho said would effectively turn away mainlanders reluctant to reveal their identities. The museum was also required to have only 20 visitors at a time, Ho added.
"The chairman of the owners' corporation [Stanly Chau Kwok-chiu] has been creating a lot of obstructions for us … people who visit other floors are not required to have their names recorded," Ho said yesterday.
The museum opened in April last year, amid a lawsuit led by Chau, which the organiser regarded as politically motivated. In the writ, the alliance is said to have breached the occupation permit by turning the fifth storey of the building into a memorial or exhibition hall.
Richard Tsoi Yiu-cheong, vice-chairman of the alliance, said the number of visitors had dropped by half compared with this time a year ago - which marked the 25th anniversary of the crackdown.
"The significant drop is quite unexpected … perhaps people have lost interest in the museum a year after its opening," Tsoi said.
One mainlander, who identified himself only as "PPI", visited the museum for the first time yesterday, on the recommendation of a local friend he met during the Occupy protests last year.
But he said he would have left when asked for personal details if he was not with his friend - whose ID the pair used instead.
The university student, 25, had learnt about the crackdown through "forbidden books", after his teachers merely offered "ambiguous answers" on the topic still taboo on the mainland.
PPI, who plans to attend the vigil at Victoria Park tonight, said the June 4 museum had a significant value in the world as it offered mainlanders a chance to dig out the truth.
Separately in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying was asked by a Spanish journalist when Beijing would face the "June 4 incident's history", as it urged Japan to face its second world war history.
Hua asked why the journalist would have "such logic".
"Japan invaded China 70 years ago and the international community came to a conclusion about this a long time ago," she said, adding the two incidents were completely different.
Additional reporting by Tony Cheung
