Europe

8324 readers

1 users here now

News/Interesting Stories/Beautiful Pictures from Europe 🇪🇺

(Current banner: Thunder mountain, Germany, 🇩🇪 ) Feel free to post submissions for banner pictures

Rules

(This list is obviously incomplete, but it will get expanded when necessary)

Be nice to each other (e.g. No direct insults against each other);
No racism, antisemitism, dehumanisation of minorities or glorification of National Socialism allowed;
No posts linking to mis-information funded by foreign states or billionaires.

Also check out [email protected]

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

484

"A strong signal to China": Model of the "Pillar of Shame," a memorial to the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, was unveiled outside the European Parliament in Brussels (edition.cnn.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

107 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

@Sylvartas

There's a lot wrong with Western colonization, but this whataboutism is once again out of place.

One difference between contemporary Europe and contemporary China is that the former consists mostly of democracies, and even though they may be imperfect democracies, there is freedom of speech.

For example, you are free to criticise your country's history, the actual politics, or freely express your opinion on any subject you want.

However, if you are organising candlelight vigils in the city of Hong Kong on the anniversary of the Chinese military's crushing of the 1989 protests in Beijing at Tiananmen Square, you go to jail.

Three former organisers of Hong Kong's annual vigil in remembrance of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests have lost their bid to overturn their conviction. A judge quashed the appeal saying there was enough evidence to uphold the decision. The trio received a four-and-a-half-month sentence last year.

[Edit typo.]