Hong Kong leader to stay away from funeral of democracy campaigner

Jan 28, 2011, 11:14 GMT

Hong Kong - The Hong Kong chief executive and senior government officials would not be attending Saturday's funeral of leading democracy campaigner Szeto Wah, a government spokesman said.

Hundreds are expected to pay their respect to Wah, one of the city's best-known pro-democracy campaigners who died earlier this month aged 79.

Chief Executive Donald Tsang and senior government officials would not be among the mourners when the funeral starts at 3 pm (0700 GMT), a spokesman said. However, Tsang and six officials would attend a public mourning session earlier in the day, the spokesman said.

The chief executive's office received 10 invitations for the funeral, according to the spokesman.

The funeral has already stirred tensions in the former British colony after the government banned exiled mainland dissidents and former student leaders of the June 4 movement Wang Dan and Wu'er Kaixi from entering Hong Kong for the service.

The move was criticized by the pro-democracy camp, while Amnesty International called on the government to explain why it had denied the two men freedom of movement.

Organizers are expecting large numbers at the church. They said Wah's coffin would be brought into the church to the sound of six long rings from the bell, followed by four short ones.

The bell-ringing is to refer the protestors of Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, whose names Szeto's fought to clear.

Szeto was the leader of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China which he founded in May 1989 to back the pro-democracy movement.

Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 under a 'one country two systems' arrangement that gives people partial democracy and greater political freedoms than in the rest of China.

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