Inside China Today

Farmland expropriated, a thousand armed police deployed for suppression

News on 15th October revealed that the Guangning County Government in Zhaoqing City, Guangdong Province, mobilized over a thousand armed police to forcibly proceed a construction project in a block of fields covering nine villages of Jiangbu Administrative District, Jinji Village of Wuhe Township. The authorities injuried many residents by using tear gas and batons with many being arrested. At present a large number of armed police are still stationed at the site and at the junction of the nine villages arresting rights defending villagers.
Agricultural land where forcible construction was conducted covers the fields in Village Hebu, Chayuan, Mabu, Liang, Jiang Au, Si-Ze and three others. On 13th October, the authorities deployed over 1, 000 anti-riot police, public security, armed police and hundreds of triad members to block every junction in Wu Jiang Bu Administrative District. Residents who approached to prevent the construction met with police repression. Mr. Lu of Mabu Village recalled the scene:

Recording: “I had never seen in my life the so-called public servants doing such a thing to people, and they haven’t even regarded us as human beings. They are those anti-riots police. Anyway, it was such chaos that day for some reason, and the situation was of great confusion. Anti-riot police beat people wherever they went, regardless of whether you are a man or woman, old or young, they had wounded many.”

Concurrently with the suppression, a large number of police have been deployed to the villages to seize people. Resident of Mabu Village expressed that arrested residents are veteran cadres, aged 60 to 70. A dozen of the public security officers kicked the door open to arrest targeted ones without any warrants. Currently, the arrested villagers agreed to sign the land pact sale under pressure, or else, they would be kept in detention.

【Recording]: “I wonder what sort of society this is, Public Security officers can do whatever they want, and to arrest anyone they like. They can enter any house by kicking the doors open, like a branch of bandits, rampant and willful.”

Mr. Li, a villager from Chayuan, stated in fear:

【Recording]: “You can say the situation here is very serious, and some public security entered households to arrest innocent people who had not taken any rights defending action but had said previously they did not agree to the practice of the local authorities.”

It is understood that the Wuhe Township Government of Guangning County, in the absence of any official land appropriation approval documents, began to expropriate farmland and mountainous areas in July 2007 to construct a renewable plastic industrial base that would occupy a land area of 1000 acres (around 6,000 mu) with compensation offered as a lump sum payment varying from several thousand yuan to over ten thousand yuan per mu. The project had met strong opposition by the villagers affected. Later residents spontaneously petitioned over ten times to higher authorities but received no response from the government.

When reporters called Wuhe Government for inquiries, one governmental official sweepingly denied assaults inflicted on villagers, and allegedly accused residents of making trouble and wounding police. He also denied the arrest of villagers. Villagers used to appeal for help to local media, and news press, however local media is now forbidden from reporting the truth of authorities suppressing the villagers.

The above news is brought to you by Li Xinhui, Tang Ling and hosted by Chris Thomas for Inside China Today.

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