Tan Wah Piow

Tan Wah Piow (Chinese: 陳華彪; pinyin: Chén Huábiāo) is currently a lawyer and a former Singapore student leader, who since 1976 lives in political exile in London. In 1987, he was accused by the Singapore government of being the alleged mastermind behind the Marxist Conspiracy. The Government of Singapore arrested 16 people for their role in an alleged Marxist Conspiracy, which involved plans to overthrow the Government to form a Marxist state. According to the state media, Tan had been influenced by Marxist and ideas since the early 1970s. In response, the government revoked his citizenship in 1987.

Tan was president of the University of Singapore’s Students’ Union (USSU) in 1974. In his time there, Tan mobilized students to become active for democracy and social justice. He was purportedly involved in an industrial dispute which led to his arrest in Nov 1974 for unlawful assembly and rioting. Tan had allegedly instigated workers of American Marine (Singapore) to agitate against their employers. Tan was eventually convicted and sentenced to one year’s imprisonment. In his judgement, Senior District Judge Mr T.S. Sinnathuray said: "The defence of a frame-up is a miserable and mischievous attempt that had altogether, failed." "On the other hand, it has been proved to the hilt that the three accused and their witnesses have fabricated evidence to pervert the course of justice in the hope that they would succeed in creating a reasonable doubt that would entitled them an acquittal." Tan Wah Piow subsequently fled to the UK in 1976 on a Singapore passport with forged renewal endorsement and sought political asylum.

According to unverified government statements, Tan is supposed to have continued with his democratic activities even though he denies this. His plan is supposed to have been to achieve political power through infiltration of mainstream organisations such as schools and unions to mobilise workers and establish strong grassroots support. To achieve that, Tan established himself as the leader of the Federation of United Kingdom and Eire Malaysian and Singapore Students’ Organisations or FUEMSSO in short, which was used to recruit supporters for his cause.

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