Szeto Wah
Hong Kong politician
Died when: 79 years 308 days (958 months)Star Sign: Pisces
Szeto Wah (Chinese: ???; 28 February 1931 – 2 January 2011) was a prominent Hong Kong democracy activist and politician.He was the founding chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, the Hong Kong Professional Teachers' Union and former member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong from 1985 to 1997 and from 1997 to 2004.
Being one of the two icons of the Hong Kong democracy movement alongside Martin Lee, Szeto played an instrumental role in the emergence of the pro-democracy camp.
Entering politics as a trade unionist for teachers, Szeto founded the influential Hong Kong Professional Teachers' Union and was first elected to the colonial legislature through the newly created Teaching functional constituency in 1985.
He and Martin Lee became the two pro-democrats appointed to the Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee by the Beijing government in 1985 until the duo resigned in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre.
Szeto played a significant part in gathering popular support of the Hong Kong public in the Tiananmen democracy movement and subsequently the Operation Yellowbird rescuing the wanted democracy activists.
He also founded the Hong Kong Alliance which has been responsible for the annual memorials for the protests.On the basis of the pro-democracy support he also co-founded the United Democrats of Hong Kong to contest in the first Legislative Council direct elections which later transformed into the Democratic Party.
Szeto remained as the unofficial party whip of the Democratic Party.He retired from the Legislative Council in 2004 and retained his influence in the pan-democracy camp.
In 2010, he led the moderate faction of the camp to oppose the radical-led Five Constituencies Referendum movement and played a significant role in drawing the revised proposal of the electoral reform package in the Democrats' negotiation with the Beijing authorities.
He remained the chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance until he died in 2011 at the age of 79.
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