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UPDATED Tuesday April 3. The Chongqing nail house has been demolished. RFA’s Mandarin service has the details (ZH).
The story so far… Many bloggers around the region have been covering the “nail house” phenomenon which has been sweeping through Chinese cyberspace, and which the official media are now forbidden to cover, although bloggers are filling the gap. Essentially, nail houses are property holders who refuse to sell out to developers. Former top Communist Party aide Bao Tong has also been busy penning his opinion of the new Property Law passed by China’s parliament in mid-March:
This is from RFA’s Mandarin service; you can read and listen to the full report in Chinese. It is also available in Cantonese:
Where: Sanhekou village, Beihai City, Guangxi Province
When: Tuesdsay 3/27 and Wednesday 3/28
What: Up to 1,000 people, including anti-riot police, demolition crew in hard hats, and uniformed personnel in military fatigues, forcibly demolished the village and beat villagers who refused to move; several people were injured; local media are prohibited from reporting the clashes; the local public security bureau has ordered websites to delete photos of and postings about the clashes.
An eyewitness told RFA Mandarin service reporter Ding Xiao: “There were police and public security personnel. They had handed out pamphlets saying their demolition actions were legal. People were injured during the clashes. More than 20 people have been hospitalized, some in serious condition. But their condition is not life-threatening. The people who beat them were not policemen. They were wearing military fatigues. They are ‘professional’ — they won’t beat you to death.”
A staffer of a Beihai-based website told Ding Xiao that his website had dispatched reporters to cover the clashes and posted online pictures of the clashes but were soon ordered by public security personnel to delete the postings: “Shortly after we posted them, we got a call from the public security bureau ordering us to delete them. We are under their jurisdiction. If you don’t obey their order, they will shut down your website. But the deleted photos had already been picked up by bigger websites elsewhere and are circulating on the Internet.”
One Sanhekou resident told RFA’s Cantonese service: “Some of the villagers tried to resist police attempts to get them into minibuses, and there was violence on both sides, with police using truncheons to beat people around the head. Because of this, some villagers were injured.”
Because of the speed of the operation, which took place before villagers had reached agreement with the government on a compensation deal, some villagers only discovered their houses had been demolished after they had gone to work for the day.
They were now homeless, the villager said.
An officer who answered the phone at the Beihai municipal police station told Cantonese service reporter Lee Kin-kwan: “I don’t know about these matters. You should ask the municipal government.”
Calls to the propaganda department of the Beihai municipal government went unanswered during office hours Friday.
Photo credit: Anonymous photographer, posted on www.lunqun.com and circulated widely on other forums and BBS sites within China.
Filed under: cantonese, China | Tagged: bao tong, china_civilrights, china_civil_rights, china_humanrights, china_media, china_property, china_rights, china_unrest, East Asia, east_asia, governance, guangxi, media, nailhouse, nail_house, Newsdesk, radio_free_asia |
[…] the official media are now forbidden to cover, although bloggers are filling the gap. Essentially, nail houses are property holders who refuse to sell out to developers, and in the above video clip, this Chongqing homeowner tells reporters that she will not vacate her […]