Six villagers’ representatives from Wanglou village, Funing County in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu were detained on the night of Oct. 28 over a land compensation dispute, sources told RFA’s Cantonese service(ZH).
The wife of one detained man, Yang Jiaren, said: “About 7 or 8 policemen intruded into our house and brought Yang away saying that Yang was making trouble. They have totally arrested 6 representatives. My husband and others only requested compensation for our land. We have to live. We have not committed any crimes. The police even did not tell me where they took my husband,” she said.
Another villager surnamed also Yang said, “They (the police) did not show proper legal documents during the arrest. They even took away the bank account books of Liu Chiliang and Yang Xijia (who were detained). The money in the bank books is public money, not their private money.”
A member of staff on duty at the local police station said he did not know anything about the situation. When RFA called, the local police chief, surnamed Wang, hung up when he learnt the call was from RFA.
The dispute has been simmering since village cadres began selling off the villagers’ land to the local government without the consent of the villagers back in the 1990s. Villagers have been fighting a campaign to have their rights protected ever since.
Meanwhile, in another land dispute further north(ZH), about 200 residents of Fuchang village, Baoding city, in the northern province of Hebei, which neighbors Beijing, surrounded the Baoding Power Station. They were protesting against the factory which they said had broken a commitment to provide heat to villagers under a deal made when the power station used their farmland.
A witness and also a villager told RFA’s Cantonese Service: “The protesters include old people, women and even kids. They are angry because the plant did not provide heat for the villagers as they promised last year in the process of buying their land….It’s raining recently and the temperature has dropped a lot. Villagers haven’t laid in coal for the winter [because of the promise of the plant].”
A deputy head of the plant surnamed Wang told RFA, “I am only responsible for the production line. I don’t know about the protest.”
Filed under: China, East Asia, Newsdesk, cantonese, china_civil_rights, china_civilrights, china_graft, china_law, china_property, china_rights, china_unrest, east_asia, governance | Tagged: China, china civil rights, china civilrights, china property, china unrest, funing county, governance, jiangsu, nail house, nail_house, wanglou, yang jiaren
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