Shanghai: Tiffany & Co. have removed a tweet showing a woman covering one eye after Chinese consumers accused the jeweller of supporting the Hong Kong protesters.
The photo posted on Monday showed Chinese model Sun Feifei wearing a Tiffany ring on her right hand as it covers her right eye. Angry Chinese buyers believed it was a deliberate echo of the pose adopted by Hong Kong's pro-democracy demonstrators to denounce police violence in the semi-autonomous city.
Hong Kong protesters who have rallied for months against Beijing's authoritarianism adopted the pose obscuring one eye after the first of two women received eye injuries during violent clashes with police.
But Tiffany's spokesman said the image was created in May before the protests erupted and "in no way intended to be a political statement of any kind".
Meanwhile, Hong Kong's Chief executive Carrie Lam on Tuesday said that the violent acts in the special administrative region these days have sent Hong Kong into "a very dangerous situation," vowing to stop violence with utmost determination and resolution.
Before presiding over a regular Executive Council meeting, Lam told the press that such violent acts were "lawless and bottomless" and completely disregarded law and order.
