TNAG-0003-FCO40-39-Commission-of-Enquiry-into-the-Kowloon-disturbances-addition-1968 — Page 122

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PART V PERSONS INVOLVED

HOR Wan Wah

371. He was born in Hong Kong in December, 1951. His father was employed as a night watchman. He has three brothers and three sisters. He attended primary school for four years and after that became an apprentice to a person teaching ivory carving at Chung King Mansions, Kowloon. In April this year he had been an apprentice for two years and had one year to complete before being qualified. He was being paid $10 a month with food and a place to sleep, but would, be paid, earn $500 to $700 when qualified as a craftsman.

372. In manner, HOR Wan Wah appeared to be frank and forthcoming but he opened his testimony with a remarkable series of contradictions as to why, on the evening of the 5th, he went to the Star Ferry pier to join the demonstrations against the fare increase. At one stage he talked of going to the pier for fresh air, but then was most emphatic that he went because he read in the morning paper of SO's arrest which did not in fact take place until late that afternoon. He would accept no suggestion that he was mistaken in date or time but eventually turned to an unconvincing explanation that his employer had told him about it--which was extremely difficult to reconcile with his description of his employer, so silent and distant from his apprentice that the latter did not even know his full name. These contradictions and his confusing account of how he came to bear a banner on the following day gave the impression that he was trying to conceal from the Commission some other contact that had brought him into these events, beginning with the demonstration on the evening of the 5th, when he joined in the procession up and down Nathan Road, and leading on to the further demonstration on the 6th, when he led a procession from the concourse up Nathan Road. He said that he was not prepared to let the Star Ferry Company increase its fares because, according to the newspapers and what he had heard, this would lead to other price increases: but, in cross-examination, he agreed that, if SO had not been arrested, he would not have demonstrated. Asked whether he thought it was lawful to take part in a procession, he eventually said, 'I am against the ferry fare increases and lawful or not I had to go'.

373. On 6th April at 7.30 p.m. he left Chung King Mansions and went to the Star Ferry pier holding a banner which his friend, he said, had prepared for him. On the banner was written 'support for Elsie ELLIOTT and opposition against Star Ferry increases'. He stated that when he got to the Star Ferry concourse there were no demonstrations there, but he held up the banner and some persons gathered round him. He then started to walk up Salisbury Road and Nathan Road and a crowd followed shouting 'opposition to Star Ferry fare increases' but he remained silent, so he said, and contemplated taking his procession to the Great World Theatre as that would be some distance from the Star Ferry concourse. However, he said, he only got as far as the Princess Theatre when he was arrested. He mentioned that there were three truckloads of policemen in that area; that the crowd was stopped by the police; and that when he was arrested the crowd ran

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