torsdag 3. juni 2021

Hong Kong's Tiananmen Square museum forced to close two days ahead of memorial

Hong Kong’s most controversial destination has been forced to close just two days before a hugely significant date in the global pro-democracy calendar. Located inside a nondescript high-rise building wedged between a gas station and a highway overpass in Kowloon, the June 4 Museum is the only museum in Greater China -- which includes the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan -- that commemorates the Beijing government's crackdown against student protesters in Tiananmen Squarein 1989.

On June 1, Hong Kong officials from the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) visited the museum in the working-class area of Mong Kok and accused the organizers of operating a "place of public entertainment" illegally. "Our department recently received a complaints that someone in a unit in a commercial building on Mong Kok Road was operating an entertainment venue without the required license," the FEHD told CNN in a statement. They added that this license is required for all businesses that "entertain people" regardless of whether they charge money as an entry fee. The museum was free to visit.