New Liu Xiaobo Statue Up Despite Objections

Pro-democracy activists on Tuesday put a new, larger statue of the late Nobel Peace laureate, Liu Xiaobo, outside Times Square in defiance of threats of legal action from the management of the shopping mall.

The new statue depicts a lifesize Liu sitting in a chair holding a cigarette. Behind the statue was an exhibition with a white bust of Liu to pay tribute to the mainland dissident and calling for the release of his widow, Liu Xia, who is under unofficial house arrest.

The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China had put up the exhibition on May 31 and last week received a letter from lawyers acting on behalf of the property owner, who threatened to take legal action if the setup was not removed.

But former lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung said he was not worried that the mall's manager would remove the new statue.

"I don't think they have any kind of rationale to do so since it is a public area. It was assigned to be managed by Times Square," he said.

But he said if the property manager asks for a court injunction to remove the exhibition, the statue will be moved to a nearby pedestrian area.

The statue will be moved to Tamar Park in Admiralty on July 13 for an event to mark the first anniversary of the late dissident's death.

Liu Xiaobo was arrested in 2009 for co-authoring "Charter 08," a document circulated the previous year that called for democracy. He was in prison when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010.