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Thursday July 17, 11:03 PMHong Kong's 'father of democracy' vows to keep pushing for vote
Lee, hailed as the "father of democracy" in Hong Kong, said he would continue to travel overseas and update foreign leaders on both the "good and bad things" about political progress here. "I will continue to speak out inside and out of Hong Kong," he said at a lunch at the city's Foreign Correspondents' Club, a day before his career as a lawmaker officially ends. He said he remained upbeat about the implementation of universal suffrage in Hong Kong and the mainland. "I can't foresee China being the last country in the world to have democratic elections," he said. Lee was a member of the committee that drew up the Basic Law, which committed the city to the introduction of democracy when it passed from British colonial rule to China in 1997. However the law did not commit to a schedule and Lee has been a strong critic of Beijing's stalling tactics since. Late last year, Beijing gave a provisional timetable to elect the city's chief executive in 2017 at the earliest and the legislature in 2020, far too late for campaigners. Lee hit the headlines last year after he wrote a much-criticised article in the Wall Street Journal calling for world leaders to press China over its human rights record in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. He said it was "frightening" to find almost 100 newspaper articles condemning him within two days of the publication of his editorial. Some critics called him a "traitor," a label that did not worry Lee. "Now they have already said that, nothing can be worse," he said. Lee's popularity surged after he led the campaign to remember and vindicate pro-democracy activists killed in the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing in 1989. Hundreds, possibly thousands, were killed when the army moved to break up the peaceful campaign, which had lasted for weeks. The demonstrators received financial and material support from Hong Kong-based supporters. |
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