Szeto Wah

 ( 1931 Births ) 

The PTU was found in 1972 as an instrument for Tsin Sai-nin to gather teachers' votes in the 1973 Urban Council election, as Tsin was opposed by the Hong Kong Teachers' Association. After Tsin was elected, he quit the PTU preparatory committee and the chairmanship was succeeded by Szeto. Szeto became the first chairman elected in 1974 and assumed its position until 1990. He was seen by journalist Louise do Rosario as "a dictatorial leader...in most meetings he monopolises the talking, with detail of his plan, strategies well-sorted out before his colleagues start to comprehend the basic outline."

In 1977, the Precious Blood Golden Jubilee Secondary School was exposed with a corruption scandal. The teachers and students launched a strike for two days. In response, the Director of Education issued warning letters to the teachers. The PTU received complaints from the teachers and demanded the withdrawal of the warning letters. Afterwards, the school changed its leadership and issued new restrictions into teachers' contracts and warning letters to teachers against Szeto Wah's advice. In May 1977, the Education Department closed down the school with the approval of the Executive Council. The PTU organised assemblies and petitions to demand the reopening of the school and investigation of the event. As a result, Governor Murray MacLehose appointed a three-member committee into the event consisting of Rayson Huang, Lo King-man and Maisie Wong. The committee suggested the founding of the Ng Yuk Secondary School to receive the teachers and students, withdrawing the warning letters and negating the actions of the school.

The PTU continued to grow into a significant labour union and pressure group in the territory.Ma, Mary (11 February 2010), The fight never ends for Szeto , The Standard According to do Rosario, Szeto even became one of "the most influential persons in Hongkong's political scene mid-70s". Due to its scale and influence, the PTU was put under surveillance by the Standing Committee on Pressure Groups (SCOPG) of the Hong Kong government in 1979. In the report, the PTU was noted by its influence and organisation. Szeto was highlighted for his leadership and effectiveness in maintaining the PTU's independence against Communist infiltration.

In 1978, Szeto Wah was elected chairman of the joint committee of the Chinese Language Movement during the second wave of the movement for the equal status of the Chinese language to English. The joint committee laid out three goals: the full implementation of the Chinese language as the official language, teaching with Chinese in school, and improvement of the Chinese teaching along with English. The movement died down as the Sino-British negotiation over the Hong Kong sovereignty took the spotlight in the early 1980s.

Szeto was also involved in the Baodiao movement in 1982 sparked by the Japanese government's revision of the history textbooks. He organised the assembly on 18 September, the anniversary of the Mukden Incident, in Victoria Park which was well attended.

In 1985, the Beijing government invited Szeto to sit on the Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee to draft the Basic Law of Hong Kong, the mini-constitution of the Special Administrative Region after 1997. He met another like-minded barrister Martin Lee in the Drafting Committee with whom he began to push for further democratisation in the following years. In the first indirect elections to the Legislative Council, Szeto was elected through the Teaching functional constituency with Martin Lee who got elected through the Legal sector.

Szeto Wah began actively pushing a faster pace of democratisation. On 27 October 1986, 91 organisations gathered to form the Joint Committee on the Promotion of Democratic Government to push forward the proposal of the "Group of 190" which demanded half of the seats in the 1988 Legislative Council to be elected directly. The committee also sent a delegation including Szeto to Beijing to meet with deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office Li Hou. However, despite the general support the committee received on the 1988 direct elections, the Hong Kong government's Survey Office concluded that 70 per cent of the people opposed it. The government's decision to introduce direct elections only in 1991 was protested by the pro-democrats who burnt a paper-made lame duck to mock the Hong Kong government's back down in front of Beijing's pressure.

The joint committee also demanded direct elections of the post-1997 Chief Executive and the Legislative Council to be included in the Basic Law. The Group of 190 proposal was countered by the highly conservative Cha proposal by Louis Cha and Cha Chi-ming backed by Beijing. The joint committee launched a series of campaign against the Cha proposal. As a result, Szeto Wah and Martin Lee became the only two drafters to vote against the proposal in the Drafting Committee.

On 27 May, the alliance helped organise the Concert For Democracy in China at the Happy Valley Racecourse. On the next day, the alliance organised another rally where a million people turned out. After the bloody crackdown on the protesters on 4 June, the alliance organised a rally condemning the Beijing authorities. On 5 June when Hong Kong activist Lee Cheuk-yan was arrested in Beijing, Szeto and Albert Ho met with Governor David Wilson at the Government House and insisted that they would not leave if the Governor did not call Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for help. After an hour of stalemate, Wilson sent a telegraph to London seeking for assistance.

Szeto also planned a general strike on 7 June. However, a minor riot in Mong Kok in the early morning of 7 June occurred. He received a call from Lydia Dunn, the Senior Member of the Executive Council, saying that she had received a report from the police that some men from the mainland were involved in the riot. He was suggested to cancel the planned rally in which he agreed.

Szeto also resigned from his position in the Drafting Committee with Martin Lee after the crackdown. They were strongly criticised by the Beijing authorities, being called "subversive" and denied entry to the Mainland. He also refused to enter the mainland since. Under his chairmanship, the alliance laid out several goals, including rehabilitation of the 1989 pro-democracy movement. He had also been responsible for the annual Tiananmen memorials and the candlelight vigil at the Victoria Park since 1990. The year 2009 saw a resurgence of the attendees of the candlelight vigil. Governor David Wilson and Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa asked Szeto three times to disband the alliance but was refused by Szeto.

The alliance was also involved in the Operation Yellowbird, providing shelter for the escaped activists in Hong Kong, confirming the identity of the activists with the Hong Kong Police Special Branch, liaising with the foreign consuls for the refuge applications and so forth, which successfully smuggled three or four hundred people abroad including student leaders Chai Ling and Wu'erkaixi.

After the election, the British government replaced David Wilson with Chris Patten as the last Governor of Hong Kong. In his inaugural policy address, Patten proposed a bold electoral reform proposal which broadened the franchise of the nine newly created functional constituencies. Patten's proposal received strong opposition from the Beijing authorities. In response to the Beijing's strong stance, the United Democrats saw the need to unite with the moderate democrats, and therefore merged with the Meeting Point to form the Democratic Party in 1994. In the mutual understanding between Szeto Wah and Martin Lee, Lee was the chairman of the party while Szeto was in charge of the alliance. Nonetheless, Szeto was given as the unofficial position of "party whip" due to his seniority without much actual power.

Szeto Wah ran in the 1995 Legislative Council election as implemented by the Patten's proposal. He defeated another veteran politician Elsie Tu in Kowloon East, who he had defeated few months ago in the Urban Council election. The Democratic Party won 12 of the 20 directly elected seats. With other individuals, the pro-democrats won 31 of the 60 seats. In response to the Patten's proposal, Beijing decided to dismantle the promised "through train" which allowed the 1995 elected legislature to survive through 1997. The Democrats boycotted the Provisional Legislative Council as they deemed as extra-constitutional.

Szeto Wah also launched a petition movement as the civil Chief Executive to mock the first Chief Executive election of 1996 by the Beijing-controlled 400-member Selection Committee. Szeto eventually accumulated more than 104,000 signatures with their ID numbers. The election was ultimately won by shipping magnate Tung Chee-hwa who was hand-picked by Beijing.

For his staunch pro-democracy conviction, Time once described him as "democracy's foot soldier", and named him one of the 25 most influential people in Hong Kong. In 1997, he was awarded the Homo Homini Award for human rights activism by the Czech group People in Need.

Szeto Wah and other Democrats ran in the first SAR Legislative Council election in May 1998 in which Szeto and Li Wah-ming won about 145,000 votes, taking two of the three seats in Kowloon East. Although the pro-democrats won 20 seats, their influence was balanced by the pro-Beijing members elected through the 10-seat Election Committee constituency. Szeto was re-elected in 2000 and decided to retire in 2004.

In 2005, the "Real Brothers incident" broke out in the Democratic Party as there were allegations of the reformist faction being infiltrated by Beijing. Szeto Wah became one of the five-member committee to investigate the incident. As a result, the accused reformist faction was defeated in the 2006 intra-party election.

On 25 May 2007 Szeto Wah was one of eight people arrested and charged with speaking at a radio show broadcast hosted by the unlicensed Citizen's Radio on the subject of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre.Alliance.org.hk. " Szeto Wah under Prosecution ." Alliance.org.hk, Retrieved on 29 December 2007. Critics argued that the Hong Kong government selectively persecuted Szeto for using unlicensed equipment when delivering the political message as other members had spoken on the radio and were not charged.

In 2009, the radical democratic League of Social Democrats (LSD) proposed the resignation of the pro-democracy legislator in each geographical constituency to trigger a territory-wide de facto referendum called the "Five Constituencies Referendum" over the 2012 constitutional reform package. Szeto initially said it was considerable and suggested the Democratic Party to actively respond to it. However, after a period of observation, Szeto believed the true intention of the LSD was to take over the leadership of the democracy movement as they had aggressively attacked other allies within the camp. Szeto then shifted his stance on the movement and actively opposed the proposed plan. In December 2009, the Democratic Party voted down the proposal to join the movement. As the pro-Beijing parties boycotted the by-elections, the turnout rate was only 17 per cent.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party leaders began to negotiate with the Beijing authorities and a revised proposal suggested by Szeto Wah was accepted by Beijing. The Standard (HK). " Ho reveals Szeto role in reform vote ." The Standard Retrieved on 8 January 2010. Szeto Wah attended the party meeting after chemotherapy and spoke in support of the revised proposal, stating that it was better to have the increase of five directly elected seats, five functional constituency seats but almost directly elected and the abolition of the appointed District Council seats than nothing.

After the Democratic Party voted for the revised package, the Democratic Party and Szeto Wah received harsh criticisms from its former allies and supporters, condemning them for betraying democracy and the Hong Kong people. "Longhair" Leung Kwok-hung in a protest in front of the PTU headquarters said Szeto Wah had his cancer got into his brain. In the following 1 July march, Szeto on his wheelchair also received criticisms from his supporters, saying that the "Democratic Party sold out Hong Kong people." In response, Szeto argued, "Sold out? How much for selling out? ... Are you pig or dog? Can you be sold out?"