Vandals break into Tiananmen crackdown museum in US, founder says

The Tiananmen crackdown museum in Los Angeles was broken into and vandalised over the weekend, according to its co-founder Wang Dan.

The June Fourth Memorial Museum in New York was vandalised, its co-founder Wang Dan says on May 31, 2026. Photo: Wang Dan, via Twitter.

“This morning, volunteers at the June Fourth Memorial Museum discovered upon arriving at work that the museum’s main gate had been vandalized and graffitied. We have already reported it to the police,” said Wang on Twitter on Sunday.

Wang was among the student leaders during the 1989 movement.

The Tiananmen crackdown occurred on June 4, 1989, ending months of student-led demonstrations in China. It is estimated that hundreds, perhaps thousands, died when the People’s Liberation Army cracked down on protesters in Beijing.

The June Fourth Memorial Museum in New York was vandalised, its co-founder Wang Dan says on May 31, 2026. Photo: Wang Dan, via Twitter.

“The perpetrator infiltrated the memorial hall and destroyed the surveillance cameras before beginning the acts of vandalism,” Wang said, adding that commemorative events would go ahead this week regardless.

Footage posted by the museum’s Twitter account appears to show historic items and information boards damaged with spray paint.

In a later tweet, Wang said that the CCTV system had been repaired, with footage handed over to the authorities. “The June Fourth Memorial Hall will never cease operations due to such acts of destruction and threats,” he said.

Museums attacked, shuttered

The June Fourth Memorial Museum in Los Angeles was opened last June by Chinese dissidents and survivors.

In April 2019, vandals struck Hong Kong’s June 4 museum.

A year after the 2020 security law was imposed in Hong Kong, a revamped museum shut down just three days after opening, with the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department saying it lacked an entertainment licence.

An online museum remains largely inaccessible in Hong Kong.

Police outside Causeway Bay’s Victoria Park, in Hong Kong, on June 4, 2024, the 35th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.

For the fourth year in a row, Hong Kong’s Victoria Park – historically the site of annual candlelight vigils to remember the victims of the crackdown – will host a patriotic food carnival on June 4.