RFA’s Cantonese service has been given some video of the Yongzhou bus riots. The introductory screen says that 20,000 residents of the city, in Hunan province, took to the streets in protest about a hike in bus fares, in what turned into four days’ rioting.
There’s an excellent overview of the incident by EastWestSouthNorth here:
On March 9 and 10, the arbitrary raising of bus fares from Zhushan to Lingling inflamed public anger. On March 8, the bus fare from Zhushan to Lingling was raised to 9 RMB. Furthermore, the students had to pay 5 RMB for bringing a blanket and also 5 RMB for brining a plastic bucket with them. This was very bad attitude.
Some of the students and parents felt that they had no choice but to rent a vehicle to go to Lingling by themselves, but they were threatened by the company that owned exclusive rights to that route. On March 9, the line continued with the price increase as well as additional fees on accompanying items. This infuriated the students’ parents and about 1,000 persons showed up to condemn the bus company. The angry crowd overturned a mid-sized bus during the process.
When the Qiyang boss heard the news in Lingling, he brought two carloads of men to Zhushan and he said that he would raze Zhushan to the ground. This caused the crowd to get angrier and overturned three mid-sized buses.
Filed under: China, East Asia, cantonese, china_media, china_unrest, east_asia, governance, media | Tagged: radio_free_asia
