[Onthebarricades] CHINA: Protests and unrest, Aug-Dec 2008

[global resistance roundup]

* Gansu, Longnan - party office stormed in land grab protest after 
earthquake, up to 10,000 in clashes with police
* Jiaxing - residents block garbage trucks in pollution protest
* Guangdong, Dongguan - toy factory workers' revolt wins new contracts
* Hunan, Leiyang - cops trash government building in pay protest
* Shanghai, Chongqing and elsewhere - taxi drivers' strike "tests tolerance"
* Shanghai, Minxing - four-day protest by dispossessed farmers
* Guangdong, Dongguan - standoff at suitcase factory in labour dispute 
after overwork death
* Shanxi, Wangjiazhuang - clashes after village election
* Shanghai: workers trash police car, battle factory goons in layoffs 
dispute
* Beijing - multiple protests break out
* Worker protests lead to statement on unemployment
* Guangzhou - taxi drivers fight police in protest over beating
* Shenzen - hundreds protest death, storm copshop
* Beijing - farmers protest land grab for train route, clash with workers
* Jiangxi - clashes in land dispute over timber mill
* Zheziang, Kanmen - migrant workers revolt over mistreatment
* Guangdong, Sanjiang - farmers block road in dispute
* China, Xinjiang - police killed in armed group clashes
* China, Beijing - student revolt in property dispute, govt office smashed
* Ningbo and Hunan, Jishou - unrest over boy injury, unpaid loans




http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/11/18/asia/AS-China-Protests.php

1,000 protesters storm Chinese government building

The Associated Press
Published: November 18, 2008

BEIJING: A crowd of 1,000 people stormed a local Communist Party 
headquarters in northwest China, smashing cars and clashing with police 
following a land dispute, government officials said Tuesday.
At least 60 people — officials, police, and protesters — were injured in 
the riots, according to a statement on the government Web site of 
Longnan city, where the unrest occurred.
The protest initially began Monday with just a small group of people 
complaining about the demolition of their homes to make way for a new 
road in Longnan in Gansu province, according to an official from the 
local Communist Party surnamed Wang.
But by nightfall, the crowd swelled to as many as 1,000 as more people 
joined the demonstration, the city's statement said.
"Instigated by a small number of people with ulterior motives, some 
unlawful people started to storm the city government building and 
attacked government officials from the petitioning office," it said.
Protesters attacked police and officials with stones, steel pipes and 
bricks. They also set fire to motorcycles, bicycles and buildings, 
according to the statement.
After attempting to calm the crowd, police "had no option but to 
disperse the unlawful elements with force," it said.
By early Tuesday morning, the situation was "under control," said Wang, 
who like many Chinese officials would give only his surname.
Protests are common in China over land seizures and corrupt officials. 
Local government officials often confiscate land for infrastructure and 
housing projects, with little or no compensation.







http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/11/19/china-protest-and-repression-at-earthquake-area-gansu-lungnan/

China: Protest and Repression at Earthquake Area, Gansu Longnan

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 @ 06:32 UTC
by Oiwan Lam
According to mainstream news report, around 30 peasants from Wudu（武 
都） district Dongjiang（東江） town paid a petition visit to the 
Longnan（隴南） city committee yesterday (17-18 of Nov), but it ended 
with police repression. There is little explanation on what had exactly 
happened as information has been blocked.
However, two videos have been uploaded in youtube showing the street 
fight between protesters and police. In the video, sound of gunfire is 
rather visible:
Beifeng tried to figure out the background of the confrontation by 
searching on the web. And it seems that the incident is related with the 
land acquisition compensation and the relocation of the Longnan City 
after the earthquake. Here is a translation of Beifeng's investigation:
Land acquisition and city relocation
陇南位于甘肃南部，是全省唯一地处长江流域区域的地区。在地震前，该地区进行 
了大规模的城市建设，许多群众农民土地被征。为修建新区政府办公区，武都区整 
个东江镇及半个汉王镇的农田、居民居住区都被征用。有消息称，有许多人被开发 
商强行拆迁，许多人至今仍住在帐篷内。
Longnan is located in southern Gansu. It is the only region in the 
province that situates near the Yangtze River. Before the earthquake in 
May, the region had a large scale city construction project and many 
peasants had to surrender their land. In order to build the new city 
government office building, most of the farmland and residential 
district at Dongjiang town and Hanwang town has been resumed. Some said 
that many people were forcefully removed by developer and some are still 
living in camp.
在 5.12特大地震中，陇南伤亡300多人，成为继四川之后的最大灾区。2008年7月 
有谣言传出，当地市委、市政府以地质原因提出了将行政中心从武都区迁往成县的 
规划，引起早先武都区拆迁农民及全区居民的强烈不满。这个谣言出现后陇南市政 
在极短时间内就通过地方媒体进行辟谣的官方讲话，很快将事态安定了下来。但在 
辟谣后一周，陇南市的网民发现，陇南武都区因地质问题迁建的讨论文档已赫然挂 
在国务院行政网站上，而陇南市府官方并没有针对此事做进一步澄清，结果在短时 
间内激化了武都与成县人民的矛盾，自此开始，社会流言与网络相互谩骂不止。拆 
迁农民亦多次上访。
In the May 12 earthquake, there were more than 300 people injured and 
killed. Gansu is the second most seriously affected area in the country 
after Sichuan. Back in July 2008, there were rumors saying that the city 
committee and government planned to relocate the city administration 
center from Longnan to Cheng County out of geology consideration. The 
plan had agitated peasants who had suffered from the land acquisition 
and the residents in Longnan. However, the government denied the rumor 
very quickly via local media and the emotion cooled down. However, a 
week later some netizens found out that the document concerning the 
geology issue and city relocation had been posted on the website of the 
State Department. The Longnan City government did not give further 
response to the issue. People from Wudu and Cheng County were put in an 
antagonistic position and there were a lot of online verbal attacks. The 
peasants suffered from land acquisition and demolition also started to 
pay petition visit.
17号早上有消息传来，“陇南市搬迁到成县以已经国务院批准”，相信这则传言是引 
发群众再次上访的直接原因。
In the morning of Nov 17, the news about “Longnan City relocation plan 
approved by State Department” spread out, which probably leaded to this 
new round of petition visit.
2008年11月17 日上午9时30分开始，甘肃省陇南市武都区东江镇30多名拆迁户再次 
集体到陇南市委上访，要求对陇南市行政中心搬迁后他们面临的住房、土地和今后 
的生活等问题做出答复。11月17日下午，大批群众和居民在陇南市委门前集体上 
访，陇南市委和相关部门的干部及时进行了接访，但未与上访人员意见达成一致。 
当晚，聚集和围观群众陆续增加，围堵至凌晨，未见到主要领导。由于未知原因， 
人群冲入市委院内，打碎玻璃，砸毁汽车，烧毁部分办公室，引发了这次次的严重 
冲突。
At 9:30am of Nov 17, more than 30 petitioners from Dongjiang town, Wudu 
district, Longnan City paid the petition visit to the city committee. 
Because of the land acquisition, people are homeless and landless, now 
that the city is to relocated to another district, they demand the city 
committee to explain the situation and whether the government have any 
relief plan for them. In the afternoon, more people gathered in front of 
the city committee. Although the city officials had arranged a meeting 
with the petitioners, there was no consensus. More and more people 
gathered outside the city committee in the evening until midnight 
expecting to see city leader. For some unknown reason, some people 
rushed into the courtyard of city committee, broke the windows and 
vehicles and set fire on part of the office. Such action leaded to this 
serious confrontation.
Police's trap
A secondary school youth from Wudu gave more background on this 
confrontation in the comment section:
原因是搬迁之事政府在很早以前就出来辟谣，告诉群众不要相信谣言，况且还为此 
逮捕了６名所谓的传谣者．更重要的是自从王义来武都做市委书记以后，拆了很多 
的民房，尤其是武都东江镇，毫不夸张的说一个很大的镇子被移为平地，数万人没 
了自己的家，王义给群众的答案是要把东江建成陇南新城，群众没有说什么他们相 
信政府，东江镇的居民全部住进了临时安置房，没有人抱怨，因为他们相信党会让 
他们过的更好！可是王义要一走了之，要那么多人永远无家可归，大家说人们能不 
愤怒吗？．５１２武都人民都没有被吓倒，１１月１７日武都人真的愤怒了，他们 
自发聚集在市委抗议，武都人是很文明的，开始只喊喊口号＂反对搬迁＂没人那么 
过激，然而在１７日夜群众愤怒了．在１７日夜有几个维持执安的成县武警把几个 
群众抓到市委大楼拳打脚踢，致使重伤，群众忍无可忍冲进大楼只是想救出群众， 
抓出打人者，可是没等人走近又是一阵警棒石块，这才越闹越大．到目前已有上百 
人被捕，很多人受了伤，生命垂危，更可气的是，调来的军车上竟写着＂反恐精英 
＂在抗震救灾在中人民解放军树立的深厚情谊被王义在一夜之间瓦解了！
The government had been preaching to the people not to believe in rumor 
and they had arrested 6 so-called rumor makers. Since Wang Yi became the 
secretary of city committee, a lot of residential buildings had been 
demolished, especially in Wudu Dongjiang town. It is not exaggerating to 
say that the whole town had been demolished and thousands of people lost 
their home. Wang Yi explained to the people that Dongjiang would become 
Longnan new city center. People believed the government and willingly 
moved into temporary housing. No one complained because they believed in 
the party's good will to improve their life. However, now that Wang Yi 
decided to move away and left behind so many homeless people. How can 
they not be angry? During the 5.12 earthquake, people wasn't panicking. 
In Nov 17, people were really angry, they protested in front of the city 
committee spontaneously. People in Wudu are very civilized, at first 
they just shout slogan: “no relocation”. However, later at night, some 
police from Cheng County pushed a number of protesters into the city 
committee building and beat them hard. People couldn't stand anymore, 
they rushed in to rescue their fellow and tried to get hold of the 
attackers. However, the police insiders received them with rods and 
stones. Then the situation became out of control. More than a hundred 
people had been arrested now, many were injured, some are fatal. It is 
more agitating that the military vehicles moving in carry a slogan 
“counter terrorist force”. The image of earthquake rescuing team has 
vanished over night.
Information blocked
Another comment urges people to help spreading the news:
到11月18日，至少已经有数十名无辜群众遭暴打致死。消息都封锁了，很多更真实 
的照片都发不出来。而在这个帖子里，竟然是政府的御用笔杆在那里乱打官腔，群 
众的感情他们根本就是在当做垃圾,而百姓的言论遭到大量的封锁，只能发布在少 
数冷门论坛里，根本无法引起外界重视。我们死了很多同胞，至少我们不希望他们 
死的太冤，在死后还要被冠以“暴民”的帽子。市委书记拆完了，招商了，引资了， 
要调离拍屁股走人了，很难不能让人相信他背后的动作。甘肃省委不明真相，封锁 
消息，这种大事连四百公里外的省会兰州都没有多少人知道！天理何在？我们的意 
见，我们的冤屈难道就这样被强权和官僚们压制！？无奈之下，只能希望大家口口 
相传，让更多的人知道真相。希望能够引起关注。就在刚才，大街上防暴警察还在 
向群众释放催泪瓦斯，官逼民反，民不得不反。天理何在，希望大家了解真相，让 
更多的人都了解真相，大家都转帮忙传一下。谢谢。
In Nov 18, tens of protesters had been beaten to death. Information had 
been blocked and photos could not be released. However, this post 
(translator note: from another forum) has adopted the official stand - 
they disregarded people's emotion and much of their opinions had been 
blocked. Their voices could only appear in a small number of forum with 
very few visitors. They couldn't attract public attention. We have lost 
a number of fellows and we hope that their deaths deserve some respect, 
not to be called as “rioters”. The secretary of the city committee had 
done with the demolition, had done with contracting out project and 
business, had done with attracting capital, now he is ready to go and 
leave people behind. He have lost his credibility. The Gansu province 
committee doesn't know the truth and blocks the information. Such big 
incident was not even reported in Lanzhou. Where is our justice? Should 
our opinion and our sufferings be repressed by the bureaucrats like 
that? We can only depends on people to pass on the information and raise 
concern. Just now, the riot police are still firing tear gas to the 
people. The people have to resist. I wish you will understand the truth 
and let it known to others. Please pass on the information, thank you.







http://www.abc.net.au/australianetwork/news/stories_to/2425668.htm

China arrests 30 over riots in northwest 21/11/2008
08:16:25


Police in north-west China have arrested 30 people involved in a two-day 
protest that had to be broken up with tear gas after 74 people were injured.

As calm returned to Longnan in Gansu province, authorities say they've 
questioned more than 100 people over the riots in which people threw 
stones, bricks and bottles at police.

The government says the protest was triggered by a group of people whose 
houses had been demolished to make way for a new government building.

The protest swelled to about 2,000 people on Tuesday, but had been 
stamped out by the evening.







http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_content.php?id=792554&lang=eng_news&cate_img=logo_world&cate_rss=WORLD_eng

Tear gas used on ax-wielding rioters in China, say witnesses
Agence France-Presse
2008-11-20 12:39 AM


Security forces in northwest China used tear gas to quell two days of 
violent protests by thousands of people who used axes, chains and iron 
bars to attack police, witnesses and officials said yesterday.
At least 60 people, including police and officials, were injured during 
the riots, according to a statement on the government website of Longnan 
city in Gansu province, where the violence occurred.
"Protesters used iron rods, chains, axes, hoes... to attack officials 
and policemen at close proximity," the statement said.
They also threw stones, bricks and flowers pots at the officials and 
police in front of the local government building, and attempted to 
hijack a fire truck that came to put out a blaze they started, according 
to the statement.
The government said the protest was triggered on Monday by about 30 
people whose houses had been demolished to make way for a new government 
building, in an apparent typical "land grab" case that often leads to 
protests in China.
A receptionist at a Longnan hotel near the government headquarters said 
there were no demonstrations yesterday because of an extremely heavy 
security presence.
"But yesterday there were a lot of people. Police used tear gas to 
disperse them," she told Agence France-Presse by phone.
"We're not far from the government building, and although we closed our 
door, the smell of gas still came into our hotel. I heard a lot of 
people were hurt."
China's official Xinhua news agency reported that the protest swelled to 
about 2,000 people on Tuesday.
But a local policeman, who asked not to be named, told AFP by phone that 
many thousands of people had joined the protest at its height on Tuesday.
"Yesterday the government brought in thousands of armed police who used 
tear gas and truncheons to disperse the crowds, and a lot of people were 
beaten," he said.
Xinhua said the situation was back under control by Tuesday evening, 
after all the main streets and crossroads had been locked down and 
people dispersed.
A spokeswoman for the Communist Party in Longnan, surnamed Li, denied 
security forces used tear gas or that tens of thousands of people 
demonstrated.







http://articles.latimes.com/2008/nov/19/world/fg-chinariots19
Massive riot in northwestern China
Thousands, angered over a plan to raze a city center, burn cars and 
battle police with rocks, iron bars and axes. A Communist office is 
overrun and 60 officials are injured.
By John M. Glionna
November 19, 2008
Reporting from Beijing — An angry crowd of 2,000 rioted in northwest 
China's Gansu province over a government plan to demolish a downtown 
area, torching cars and attacking a local Communist Party office, 
injuring 60 officials, state-run media reported Tuesday.
At one point, rioters met a surging wall of armed police officers with a 
hail of rocks, bricks, bottles and flowerpots. The crowd later 
confronted police with iron bars, axes and hoes as they tried to hijack 
a fire truck and smashed windows and office equipment in two government 
buildings.
The violence, one of the most marked instances of social unrest to grip 
China in recent months, was sparked by government plans to relocate the 
city of Longnan's administrative center after May's devastating 
earthquake, according to the Xinhua news agency.
State-run press has reported on numerous pickets and demonstrations that 
have broken out across China in recent weeks, including a two-day strike 
by disgruntled taxi drivers in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing.
Earlier this month, a crowd of 400 in the southern boomtown of Zhenzhen 
threw stones and set fire to a police car after officers tried to stop a 
motorcyclist at a checkpoint. The cyclist fled and was killed when he 
hit a lamppost.
In June, 30,000 people demonstrated in the southwestern province of 
Guizhou, setting fire to cars and the local Communist Party building 
following rumors that officials had tried to cover up the death of a 
teenage girl.
Activists warn that tensions over the sudden downturn in the Chinese 
economy could provoke similar public outbursts, even though police have 
made efforts not to immediately resort to violence in quelling the riots.
"The government's emphasis on maintaining a harmonious society just 
extenuates the levels to which it is worried about these kinds of 
threats to social stability," said Joshua Rosenzweig, a Hong Kong 
manager of research at the Dui Hua Foundation, a human rights group.
"I don't think we're even close to seeing the real impact of the global 
financial crisis on Chinese society. I'd be surprised if the government 
wasn't very concerned about the increasing level of social unrest all 
over China."
Chinese economists say that rising wages throughout China have led many 
laborers to expect better working conditions and residents to demand 
more accountable government. "The local government has become the front 
line of conflict," said Hu Xingdou, an economics professor at the 
Beijing Institute of Technology.







http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7737262.stm

Wednesday, 19 November 2008

Clashes at China 'land protest'

Video footage captured the moments the protester and police clashed
Demonstrators in Gansu province, China, have attacked government 
buildings in protest at a plan to demolish homes, says state media.
Xinhua reported that thousands of people angry at having to relocate to 
make way for government developments used chains and axes to attack police.
Property and vehicles were damaged and several people injured, say reports.
Correspondents say that protests over land seizures have increased in 
China in recent years.
The Gansu protests were reported to have started after the local 
authorities announced plans to relocate the government of Longnan City, 
said Xinhua.
The move would force local residents to be resettled. Some homes had 
already been demolished when the protests began.
Tear gas
Protests first broke out on Monday and fired up 24 hours later.
"Protesters used iron rods, chains, axes, [and] hoes... to attack 
officials and policemen at close proximity," said a statement from the 
security forces.

Police fired tear gas which made women and children sick. This made the 
others angry

Eyewitness
They are also reported to have thrown stones, bricks and flowerpots at 
officials and police in front of the local government building.
Xinhua said 2,000 people had been involved in the unrest, but a local 
policeman told the AFP news agency that crowds had numbered several 
thousand.
"Yesterday the government brought in thousands of armed police who used 
tear gas and truncheons to disperse the crowds, and a lot of people were 
beaten," the policemen told the agency.
Video footage posted on YouTube appeared to show people throwing stones 
at men in uniform, who respond by hitting out with sticks.
One eyewitness told the Reuters news agency there were "a few thousand 
petitioners", a term used to describe people complaining to the 
authorities.
"Police fired tear gas which made women and children sick. This made the 
others angry," said the eyewitness, who did not give his name.
"We're not far from the government building, and although we closed our 
door, the smell of gas still came into our hotel. I heard a lot of 
people were hurt," another witness told AFP.
The authorities said the situation was under control by Wednesday after 
streets and junctions were closed.
Earthquake unrest
Gansu province was severely damaged by the massive earthquake which hit 
neighbouring Sichuan in May 2008, which left some five million people 
homeless.


Commentators have suggested that the unrest could be linked to general 
discontent over the reconstruction projects and assistance given to 
those who lost their homes and belongings.
Many of those left homeless by the quake were reported to be still 
living in camps.
Gansu Communist Party chief Lu Hao said the rebuilding task was 
"extremely urgent" and that central government had approved the 
reconstruction plan for the areas.
Reporting a similar disturbance earlier this year, the BBC's James 
Reynolds, in Beijing, said that China has tried to address the issue of 
property seizure by passing a law giving ordinary people better 
protection against developers.
But people in many areas still feel that they are powerless to stop 
their land from being taken, he said.
Protests have also taken place against rising living costs and 
unemployment, and earlier this month hundreds of people rioted in the 
southern city of Shenzhen following the death of a motorcyclist close to 
a police checkpoint.







http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_2428871,00.html

Axe-wielding rioters, cops clash
2008-11-19 11:52
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Beijing - Security forces in northwest China used tear gas to quell two 
days of violent protests by thousands of people who used axes, chains 
and iron bars to attack police, witnesses and officials said on Wednesday.
At least 60 people, including police and officials, were injured during 
the riots, according to a statement on the government website of Longnan 
city in Gansu province where the violence occurred.
"Protesters used iron rods, chains, axes, hoes... to attack officials 
and policemen at close proximity," the statement said.
They also threw stones, bricks and flowers pots at the officials and 
police in front of the local government building, according to the 
statement.
A receptionist at a Longnan hotel near the government headquarters said 
there were no demonstrations on Wednesday because of an extremely heavy 
security presence.
"But yesterday there were a lot of people. Police used tear gas to 
disperse them," she told AFP by phone.
"We're not far from the government building, and although we closed our 
door, the smell of gas still came into our hotel. I heard a lot of 
people were hurt."
According to the local government's statement, the protest began on 
Monday with about 30 people whose houses had been demolished to make way 
for a new government building in a different part of town.
China's official Xinhua news agency reported that the protest swelled to 
around 2 000 people on Tuesday, with demonstrators smashing windows of 
the government building and nearby cars.
But a local policeman, who asked not be named for fear of retaliation, 
told AFP by phone that many thousands of people had joined the protest 
at its height on Tuesday.
"Yesterday the government brought in thousands of armed police who used 
tear gas and truncheons to disperse the crowds, and a lot of people were 
beaten," he said by phone.
"Some people in the crowd threw stones, so both sides sustained injuries."
Xinhua said the situation was back under control by Tuesday evening, 
after all the main streets and crossroads had been locked down and 
people dispersed.
Protests are common in China, often fuelled by government-backed land 
grabs or abuses of power.
- AFP








http://cmp.hku.hk/2008/11/20/1368/

The Longnan riots and the CCP’s global spin campaign
By David Bandurski — At first glance, Control 2.0 seems to herald a more 
open-handed approach to news and information in China, promising rapid 
coverage of sudden-breaking news events. But it has worked with growing 
effectiveness this year as an open hand that deals a back-handed slap to 
the news, and that sends international media spinning into orbit. 
[Frontpage image by cbcastro available at Flickr under Creative Commons 
license.]
What we consume from Xinhua News Agency and the usual suspects (People’s 
Daily, local party newspapers, etc.) in the immediate aftermath of 
sudden-breaking news events, or tufa shijian (突发事件), is pretty much 
the best we can expect in China. And the same goes for international 
coverage.
The basic point you can glean from coverage so far of the Longnan riots, 
whatever the source, is that we are all, thanks to the party’s more 
active approach to shaping news coverage, consuming and transmitting the 
same “authoritative” CCP facts.
We are tops spinning in place.
When news of the incident in Longnan broke on Tuesday, it was from three 
official sources:
1. An article in the official Gansu Daily
2. An official Xinhua News Agency release [English version here]
3. An official statement from the news office of the Longnan City 
People’s Government
Here are all three of these sources as they appeared online Tuesday 
afternoon.

The Gansu Daily version was actually on the front page of the print 
newspaper, what one might under other circumstances have seen as a 
welcome sign of change.
In the past, what we’ve generally seen are embarrassing local stories 
pushed to the back or avoided altogether in local party dailies, while 
coverage comes predominately from commercial newspapers in other cities 
or provinces.
If you insist on seeing the glass as half full, you can cite this as one 
of your reasons for optimism.
Anyhow, the Gansu Daily story read:
“Mass Petition Incident Occurs in Longnan City’s Wudu District”
Gansu Daily reporting. At approximately 9am on November 17, more than 30 
residents facing eviction and relocation in Dongjiang Township, Wudu 
District, Longnan City, gathered at the office of the party committee to 
voice [their views] on the problem of the relocation of Longnan’s 
administrative center.
The party committee and relevant departments quickly received their 
petitions. As the petitioners would not be satisfied, the mass of 
onlookers continued to grow, reaching as many as 2,000 people. In the 
early hours of November 18, a number of petitioners attacked the offices 
of the party committee and other government offices, causing damage to 
vehicles and other office facilities. By 2am [on the 18th] most of the 
masses gathered had already left.
After receiving a report [on the incident], the provincial party 
committee and provincial government had given the case a high level of 
priority. At 5pm on November 17, Party Secretary Lu Hao (陆浩) and 
Governor Xu Shousheng (徐守盛) issued their instructions. In the early 
hours of November 18, Lu Hao called an urgent meeting to carry out 
special research on the Longnan Mass Petitioning Incident (陇南群体性上 
访事件), seeking opinion on disposal [of the crisis] and demanding that 
the Longnan Party Committee and the city government take measures to 
quickly bring the situation under control, ensuring social stability and 
securing the smooth resumption of post-quake reconstruction efforts.
While Gansu Daily’s version of the story led meager print coverage of 
the story on November 18, including in the Legal Mirror and Shenzhen 
Evening News, the Xinhua News Agency version dominated coverage on the 
Internet, where we saw reports from:
*Phoenix Online [CHINESE]
*Reuters news agency [CHINESE] (adding material from the Longnan city 
government statement)
*UPI [ENGLISH]
*CNN Website [ENGLISH] (Xinhua version + a few Chinese chatroom comments)
*AFP [ENGLISH]
Like the CNN website, the AFP version frosted what was basically a 
Xinhua report with a brief reference to Chinese internet posts and a 
couple of paragraphs of background:
The official state media did not offer further details on the dispute, 
but government-backed land grabs, often in collusion with developers, 
have become one of China’s most sensitive social issues . . .
Gansu neighbours Sichuan province, which was at the epicentre of the May 
12 earthquake that left up to 88,000 people dead or missing.
It is no surprise, of course, to see international newswires relying 
largely on Xinhua for these initial news reports. Even if they do have 
the resources to dispatch reporters to the scene, this takes time.
In a report late Wednesday, the strongest foreign wire report of the 
day, the AFP reached three additional sources by phone, including a 
party employee, a hotel receptionist and an unnamed local policeman. 
Reuters coverage on Wednesday supplemented official facts with quotes 
from a “hotel worker” and from a foreign risk analyst in Beijing (not 
related to Longnan).
None of the foreign wire reports available differed substantially from 
the official story.
The most notable coverage of the Longnan story on Tuesday came from 
Caijing Online, the now fairly autonomous online edition of the leading 
current affairs magazine Caijing.

Caijing led with a map infographic of Longnan from the original Gansu 
Daily report, and supplemented facts from Gansu Daily and the Longnan 
government statement with background material on the recent history of 
urban development in Longnan, probably drawn from prior news coverage 
and other material in the public domain:
After the re-drawing of [city] districts in 2004, Longnan City used many 
means to intensify local development. One important measure was a 
strategy (“东扩西进、南北贯通”战略) for Wudu District, which involved a 
decision to develop the Dongjiang New District on the foundation of Wudu 
District’s Dongjiang Township (东江镇). After this, residents in 
Dongjiang Township were faced with a wide-scale land requisition 
campaign, and the majority of residents have lived ever since in 
transitional demolition and relocation quarters waiting to move into 
resettlement homes.
Beginning in March 2008, there was news that the city’s administrative 
center would be moved . . . and this made the residents of Wudu District 
uneasy. They were concerned that once they had lost the advantages of an 
administrative center, the overall development of Wudu would be 
impacted. The news that the administrative center would be relocated 
created an even bigger stir in Dongjiang Township, where residents 
worried that relocating the administrative center would mean related 
developments would cease, including preparation for their resettlement 
homes, and that the issues of land and subsistence would not be resolved 
for them. With these concerns, they went through many different means 
and channels to voice their opposition to the relocation of the 
administrative center.
On this matter, the Longnan city government on a number of occasions 
held meetings to say that the removal of the administrative center was a 
rumor, that “the party committee and the government have no intention of 
relocating” and that their “determination to build a bright new city in 
Wudu had not changed …”
Caijing’s own augmentation of the official version of events actually 
influenced coverage at two newspapers the next day [See top of list 
below]. Here’s a taste of where coverage was being sourced at the 
fifty-odd party and commercial newspapers that ran the story on Wednesday.
Chongqing Morning Post (Sources material from Caijing Online and Gansu 
Daily)
Southern Metropolis Daily (Sources material from Caijing Online and 
Gansu Daily)
Shenzhen News (Sources material from Xinhua News Agency via People’s 
Daily Online)
The Beijing News (Sources material from Gansu Daily and “other sources,” 
basically Xinhua)
Changsha Evening News (Sources material from Xinhua but rewrites lead to 
focus on “a few people with ulterior motives”)
Jinan Daily (Uses shortened version of the Xinhua report)
Beijing Times (Uses Gansu Daily version)

[ABOVE: Page A14 of Wednesday’s Southern Metropolis Daily runs state 
media coverage of riots in Longnan plus some Caijing Online material.]

[ABOVE: Page 11 of Wednesday’s Chongqing Evening Post with coverage of 
the Longnan riots from the official Gansu Daily.]
The two papers using some Caijing Online material were a rare but 
notable exception to what was otherwise exclusively official 
information. All other reports were sourced from Xinhua News Agency, 
Gansu Daily and the Longnan government’s official statement.
A smattering of editorials on the Internet reflected on the Longnan 
incident, some pointing the finger at the local government.
The AFP noted one People’s Daily Online editorial in its Wednesday 
report, with the misleading suggestion that this was “an unusual move 
apparently aimed at placating the protesters.” It was not. And reporters 
are warned against assuming material at People’s Daily Online have even 
an iota of the gravitas of articles appearing in People’s Daily, the 
official party mouthpiece.
The most strongly worded editorial, in fact, came from CN Hubei, and was 
available by late Tuesday night:
Water is a soft and yielding substance, but stir it up and it surges 
with unimaginable power. That is why the ancients said: “As water can 
float a vessel, so can it capsize it.” Ordinary people are the water, 
and the government is the boat, and if the vessel and the water cannot 
exist in harmony then the result is difficult to predict, and ghastly to 
contemplate. We have as our best examples a number of dynasties with 
strong soldiers and sturdy horses that were overthrown by ordinary 
people. We have some officials who don’t understand this most elementary 
of principles, who treat the ordinary people as weak and amenable water. 
This is bound to raise the ire of the masses, creating conflict, 
destroying the goodwill between the party and the masses, between cadres 
and the masses, and impacting the development of harmony and the 
economy. Should these profound lessons not alarm us and cause us to 
reflect more deeply?
Gansu Daily reported on November 18: at November 17 at around 9am, more 
than 30 residents facing demolition and removal [from their residences] 
gathered to petition in Dongjiang Township (东江镇) of Wudu District (武 
都区) in Longnan City (陇南市), expressing [their opposition] regarding 
the relocation of Longnan’s administrative center (行政中心). The office 
of the party secretary and relevant government offices moved quickly to 
hear their petitions, but those petitioning were not to be discouraged 
and the crowd of onlookers continued to grow, reaching as many as 2,000 
people. In the early morning hours of November 18, a number of 
petitioners assaulted the administrative building of the local party 
committee, damaging a number of vehicles and some office equipment. The 
area had already been mostly deserted by 2am.
Our Great Leader Mao Zedong once said: “In this world there is no such 
thing as love without reason, nor hate without reason.” Most ordinary 
Chinese are the kind of people who see lightning and fear that their 
ears will be shaken, who fear for their heads when leaves drop from the 
trees . . . Sometimes, all it takes is a fart from an official to send 
them running for the hills. This time around, when they’ve actually 
eaten bear heart and panther gall, daring to attack the office of the 
party secretary and destroy vehicles, exchanging their cotton trousers 
for leather ones — there must be a reason. Dogs leap the wall when 
they’re desperate, and rabbits gnash their teeth. These ordinary people 
once had houses to live in, but after demolition and removal [of these 
properties], the compensation they have received doesn’t enable them to 
buy homes. Tell me, how could they not petition?
Chinese news coverage today (Thursday, November 20) is again dominated 
by Xinhua News Agency and Gansu Daily. Thirty print news articles and 
three editorials are returned in our database of 300+ mainland 
newspapers with a search on “Longnan” and “incident” (陇南 and 事件).
Here are some examples:
Information Times (Xinhua release)
Shijiazhuang Daily (Xinhua release)
Sichuan Legal Daily (Xinhua release)
Tianjin Daily (Xinhua release)
Xin’an Evening News (Xinhua release)
Hainan Daily (Xinhua release)
Legal Daily (Bylines a compilation of official news sources, mostly from 
Gansu provincial level)
Shanghai Morning Post (Xinhua release)
Chongqing Morning Post (Xinhua, China News Service and China National Radio)
Harbin Daily (Xinhua release)
Spring City Evening Post (Xinhua and China News Service)
The Beijing News (Xinhua and other official sources)
Wuhan Evening Post (Xinhua release)
Official coverage is obviously everywhere today. But lest readers of 
English feel left out of the party message, here is the Xinhua version 
for international consumption from China Daily:
Police departments must standardize procedures for law enforcement and 
build harmonious relations with the people, the country’s top public 
security official said on Tuesday.
Speaking at a teleconference with local police heads, State Councilor 
and Minister of Public Security Meng Jianzhu said police should “be 
fully aware of the challenge brought by the global financial crisis and 
try their best to maintain social stability” . . .
Meng’s comments come in the wake of a clash between protestors and 
police in Longnan, Gansu province.
On Monday, thousands of people, angered by a property dispute, stormed 
the city’s Party headquarters, smashing windows, burning cars, and 
injuring more than 60 government workers and police, a statement from 
the local government said yesterday.
The situation is now “under control”, it said.
The Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday that the protesters have left 
the site and order has been restored . . .
Or, if you prefer the Gansu Daily version, you can read a mouthful about 
how order has been restored, how leaders are doing their utmost, and how 
everything is just, well, hunky-dory — except for those nasty 
petitioners “with ulterior motives”:
Things returned to normal on November 19 after a mass incident in which 
the office of the party committee was attacked. During the reporter’s 
interviews today, cadres and the masses all expressed their desire for 
stability and harmonious development, and their earnest hope for the 
quick rebuilding of their homes damaged during the earthquake [in May].
At 9am on November 19, most shops along the streets of Wudu District had 
opened their doors for business. People came and went on the street 
outside the gate to the offices of the Longnan Party Committee . . . 
[See Southern Metropolis Daily eyewitness refutation of this last 
statment below.]
One cadre said: “Our Longnan has just recently suffered seriously from 
the earthquake disaster, and it is one of the areas affected most 
seriously. After the earthquake happened, the party and the government 
cared very much about the disaster area, and everyone in the throughout 
the nation and the province did their utmost to support the area, 
providing the Longnan disaster area with materials and financial 
support. Now the rebuilding plan for the Longnan District has already 
been set down, and work has begun already for many projects. The work of 
rebuilding in the disaster area is going forward urgently, and during a 
time like this it is very bad to have such an incident as this [riot] 
occur. This not only affects the normal operation of society, but also 
affects the work of rebuilding after the disaster. The masses in the 
disaster area do not approve of such behavior . . .

[ABOVE: Screenshot of Gansu Daily November 20 coverage of Longnan via 
China.com]
Another key component of Xinhua coverage today is the news that Gansu 
Party Secretary Lu Hao (陆浩) said during a November 18 meeting with top 
provincial leaders that officials needed to “reflect back deeply” (深刻 
反思) on the Longnan incident to ensure a “harmonious and stable 
environment for economic and social development.”
Gansu Party Secretary Lu Hao said to cadres from various offices of the 
party and government that [all] needed to reflect back deeply on this 
mass incident, earnestly seeking its lessons . . . using effective 
measures to quickly handle social contradictions of various kinds and to 
create a harmonious and stable environment for economic and social 
development.
We can only assume on the basis of coverage at present that Lu Hao’s 
call for “reflection,” or fansi (反思), was not read as an invitation to 
more independent-minded non-party newspapers to look more deeply into 
the Longnan incident.
But is there really no news coverage that wanders away from the 
sanitized state version?
We find the one lone Chinese example in print today in the only place it 
would probably occur to most China watchers to look for it: Southern 
Metropolis Daily.

Most of the key facts in the Southern Metropolis Daily report are taken 
from official sources, including Xinhua and Gansu Daily. But the 
reporter is apparently on the scene, and the news report is sprinkled 
with direct observation, including an account that directly contradicts 
the Gansu Daily report that has people “coming and going” outside the 
party committee headquarters:
Yesterday, this reporter visited the site at the offices of the party 
committee where the incident occured and saw that the area was already 
under lockdown, with police positioned at both ends of the street. 
According to information this reporter obtained from the police, things 
will return to normal once order has been restored to key stretches of 
road and arterial roads . . .
. . . In a television report explaining the [Longnan] incident on the 
local Wudu TV this reporter saw a spokesperson for the city government 
of Longnan emphasizing that police had been order not to use weapons in 
conficts with the masses . . .
. . . Hearing rumors from the public that the city would be under curfew 
beginning at 10pm, this reporter learned from a dispatcher at the 110 
emergency service number that a curfew was not in effect for the city. 
However [the dispatch said], the police have advised city residents “to 
go out seldomly at night if they have no business, and to do things as 
normal if they have business.”
We’ll have to keep an eye out over the next few days to see if Southern 
Metropolis Daily’s reporter on the ground — or anyone else — digs up 
anything interesting.
So far, though, it seems that Control 2.0 is working quite effectively. 
And that rings true whether you’re reading Harbin Daily or the Las Vegas 
Sun.
FURTHER READING:
“China at last tries to report the news first,” Reuters, November 20, 
2008 [A “writ” from propaganda authorities? Sure, this was it.]
[Posted by David Bandurski, November 20, 2008, 4:32pm HK]







http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2008/1120/1227136328550.html

Thursday, November 20, 2008
Chinese police told to keep a lid on economic protests
In this section »
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CLIFFORD COONAN
THE CHINESE government has urged police and local authorities to keep a 
lid on social unrest and safeguard stability after a series of riots and 
demonstrations in a number of areas largely prompted by the slowing economy.
Thousands of people mobbed a government office in Longnan in the 
northwestern province of Gansu on Monday, burning cars and looting 
office equipment, the Xinhua news agency reported. There was more 
violence on Tuesday and the authorities ordered an evening curfew and 
closed major streets and local businesses.
Xinhua said order had been restored in the area after the unrest. It 
began after residents of Dongjiang town in Wudu District went to the 
city government to petition regarding forced relocation from their 
farmlands.
Websites carried pictures of armed riot police being attacked by 
demonstrators.
It's the latest in a series of protests and demonstrations nationwide. 
China has warned that economic growth will slow this year to less than 
the double-digit expansion it has seen for many years. The export 
market, crucial to the economy, is slowing as economies in the West slow 
down, and there have been factory closures in areas such as Guangdong 
province, the engine of China's booming economy.
The Communist Party is wary of social unrest and any instability which 
could threaten its grip on the country.
Public security minister Meng Jianzhu told the China Daily that police 
"should be fully aware of the challenge brought by the global financial 
crisis and try their best to maintain social stability".
Mr Meng, a member of the State Council, urged the police to further 
improve their approach to law enforcement, using "a harmonious thinking 
to ease conflicts and a harmonious attitude to treat the people".
This month has seen a series of strikes by taxi drivers in major cities, 
angry at rising rental fees and competition from unlicensed cabbies.
In factories in southern China there have been demonstrations over 
closures after international toy companies cancelled orders, while 
workers at a diesel plant in Jiangyan in the eastern province of Jiangsu 
blocked roads and surrounded government offices amid concerns over job 
security.







http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7737262.stm

Wednesday, 19 November 2008
E-mail this to a friend
Printable version

Clashes at China 'land protest'

Video footage captured the moments the protester and police clashed
Demonstrators in Gansu province, China, have attacked government 
buildings in protest at a plan to demolish homes, says state media.
Xinhua reported that thousands of people angry at having to relocate to 
make way for government developments used chains and axes to attack police.
Property and vehicles were damaged and several people injured, say reports.
Correspondents say that protests over land seizures have increased in 
China in recent years.
The Gansu protests were reported to have started after the local 
authorities announced plans to relocate the government of Longnan City, 
said Xinhua.
The move would force local residents to be resettled. Some homes had 
already been demolished when the protests began.
Tear gas
Protests first broke out on Monday and fired up 24 hours later.
"Protesters used iron rods, chains, axes, [and] hoes... to attack 
officials and policemen at close proximity," said a statement from the 
security forces.

Police fired tear gas which made women and children sick. This made the 
others angry

Eyewitness
They are also reported to have thrown stones, bricks and flowerpots at 
officials and police in front of the local government building.
Xinhua said 2,000 people had been involved in the unrest, but a local 
policeman told the AFP news agency that crowds had numbered several 
thousand.
"Yesterday the government brought in thousands of armed police who used 
tear gas and truncheons to disperse the crowds, and a lot of people were 
beaten," the policemen told the agency.
Video footage posted on YouTube appeared to show people throwing stones 
at men in uniform, who respond by hitting out with sticks.
One eyewitness told the Reuters news agency there were "a few thousand 
petitioners", a term used to describe people complaining to the 
authorities.
"Police fired tear gas which made women and children sick. This made the 
others angry," said the eyewitness, who did not give his name.
"We're not far from the government building, and although we closed our 
door, the smell of gas still came into our hotel. I heard a lot of 
people were hurt," another witness told AFP.
The authorities said the situation was under control by Wednesday after 
streets and junctions were closed.
Earthquake unrest
Gansu province was severely damaged by the massive earthquake which hit 
neighbouring Sichuan in May 2008, which left some five million people 
homeless.


Commentators have suggested that the unrest could be linked to general 
discontent over the reconstruction projects and assistance given to 
those who lost their homes and belongings.
Many of those left homeless by the quake were reported to be still 
living in camps.
Gansu Communist Party chief Lu Hao said the rebuilding task was 
"extremely urgent" and that central government had approved the 
reconstruction plan for the areas.
Reporting a similar disturbance earlier this year, the BBC's James 
Reynolds, in Beijing, said that China has tried to address the issue of 
property seizure by passing a law giving ordinary people better 
protection against developers.
But people in many areas still feel that they are powerless to stop 
their land from being taken, he said.
Protests have also taken place against rising living costs and 
unemployment, and earlier this month hundreds of people rioted in the 
southern city of Shenzhen following the death of a motorcyclist close to 
a police checkpoint.









http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=16768

China: Curfew imposed after urban warfare protests
10,000 people have taken to the streets to defend the rights of a few 
dozen with many turning to protests -- the economic crisis and 
unemployment are making the situation explosive
Thursday, November 20, 2008
By Asia News

Protests continued with an escalation of violence yesterday in Longnan 
(Gansu), with clashes between 10,000 people and the police, thousands of 
cars burned, and more than 60 people injured. Today there is an eerie 
calm in the area, after a curfew was imposed and the main roads and 
shopping centers were closed. Meanwhile, videos of the clashes are 
circulating on the internet.
The protests began two days ago, in support of 30 residents of the 
little town of Dongjiang, who were driven from their homes in 2006 and 
have been living in temporary shelters since then, asking the government 
of Longnan to honor its promise to provide them with other homes. More 
than 2,000 people took to the streets and clashed with police, tearing 
up two public buildings. The protests continued yesterday, and at night 
hundreds of police officers remained on patrol to control the thousands 
still in the street. It is a very poor area, where the earthquake on May 
12 left 1.8 million without homes, and reconstruction has been delayed.
The episode, with the crowd coming to the defense of citizens harassed 
by the authorities, is only one of the many protests over the violation 
of fundamental civil rights. The population, which has no means of 
obtaining justice or even the right to protest, is taking to the streets 
as the last possibility to assert its rights, solidifying the widespread 
discontent. The police are even intervening to defend the interests of 
big businesses, which are protected by local officials. Like in Tonggu 
(Jianxi) on October 24, when thousands protested against a company that 
was cutting down the woods, and clashed with police, with dozens injured 
and cars set on fire. Or in Jishou (Hunan), with more than 10,000 who 
clashed with police to protest the expropriation of land. Or on November 
7 in Shenzhen, when hundreds took to the streets because the police had 
shot and killed a motorcyclist at a checkpoint, as also on July 17 in 
the county of Boluo (Huizhoum, in Guangdong), also over the death of a 
motorcyclist. In both cases, there were serious clashes, and police cars 
were burned or destroyed.
Hu Xingdou, a professor of economics at the Beijing Institute of 
Technology, observes that "the local government has become the front 
line of conflict." Discontent has grown together with the economic 
crisis, inflation, and rising unemployment. For now, Beijing, through 
public safety minister Meng Jianzhu, has limited itself to telling the 
police that they "should be fully aware of the challenge brought by the 
global financial crisis and try their best to maintain social stability."
But other avenues are also being sought: companies in Shandong and Hubei 
have been told to ask for "official authorization" in order to fire more 
than 40 people, after 700,000 people have lost their jobs in Shangdong 
alone in 2008. In Guangdong, thousands of factories have been closed, 
and at many others salaries have been cut by 25%: often too little to 
live on.









http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china/thousands-riot-protests-longnan-gansu-china-7364.html

Thousands of Protestors Overrun Communist Office in Northwest China
By Samuel Spencer
Epoch Times Staff Nov 18, 2008

People watch armed police from the side of the street. Thousands of 
people rioted in Gansu province protesting the regime's move of an 
office, resulting in a termination of reconstruction of houses affected 
by the Sichuan earthquake. (The Epoch Times)
Between 2,000 and 10,000 people protested and attacked a Communist Party 
office in Gansu province of Northwest China early Tuesday. 60 people 
were reported to have been hurt in the protests.
The numbers of protestors varied in reports —state-run media reported 
2,000 protestors, and various online blogs reported that close to 10,000 
people had been protesting.
The riots are believed to have occurred due to the regime’s decision to 
move its offices at the city of Longnan to another city. One blog 
reported that the move had resulted in the termination of housing 
construction for thousands of families who had been affected in the 
Sichuan earthquake. The May earthquake killed 275 people in Longnan and 
destroyed many houses.
State-run media reported that 30 residents had gathered on Monday to 
protest the reallocation of the office, but that the number had quickly 
grown.

The violence is only the latest of numerous angry protests that have 
broken out against the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

In recent weeks, numerous protests by disgruntled taxi drivers have 
broken out across the country, especially in Chongqing. The taxi driver 
protests were prompted by what many believe to be collusion between the 
regime and fleet owners to let taxi drivers bear the brunt of the 
fallout from low fares and rising costs.
In June, 30,000 people rioted outside the Party office in Guizhou 
province, setting fire to government vehicles after a local girl’s 
death. The death of the 15-year-old girl, who had been raped and 
murdered, was widely rumored to have been covered up by police and 
government officials.

The Chinese Communist Party has often used a growing economy to offset 
questions about its human rights records and its iron-fisted rule, but 
the recent economic downturn is now testing the limits of how far free 
expression can go under the Communist regime.
Last Updated
Nov 19, 2008







http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/6532540.html

Rubbish piles up in Chinese city streets in pollution protest

19:30, November 12, 2008


Rotting rubbish has been piling up on the streets of Jiaxing city for 
four days after residents blocked garbage trucks with their bodies at a 
waste disposal plant in a protest against pollution.

Villagers living near Jiaxing's Buyun Garbage Incineration Power Plant 
gathered at its gate on Saturday to block rubbish trucks from entering, 
saying its stinking smell and dust had affected their health and the 
harvest.

A spokesman for the local government said it had persuaded the villagers 
to leave on Wednesday, with promises to replace the plant's old furnaces 
with new ones which met environmental standards.

But the replacement would be carried out only after approximately 400 
tonnes of rubbish that had piled up in the city over the past four days 
was properly disposed of, he said on condition of anonymity.

The plant was forced to stop operation between Saturday and Tuesday when 
angry villagers took turns to block the main entrance to the privately 
owned plant.

On Tuesday, around 30 villagers deflated the tires of seven rubbish 
trucks and blocked the plant's trucks from leaving.

The plant in Jiaoshanmen Village, Daqiao town, about 10 kilometers from 
Jiaxing's city center, opened in 2003.

Village official Chen Jianfeng said residents had been worryinga bout 
pollution for the past five years. "But this time, their grievances 
reached a climax because of apparent losses in the fields and suspected 
health problems."

Farmers complained their fruits and vegetables hardly sell on the 
market, as dust from the incineration plant falls on crops and is 
difficult to remove, said Chen.

Yu Yuezhong, who grows grapes in his family's greenhouse, said this 
year's fruits were extremely small because the dust that accumulated on 
the roof of the greenhouse blocked sunshine.

Many villagers suspected that pollution from the plant had affected 
their health, too. Though no official figure is available, one of the 
villagers said 16 people in the village had died of cancer in the past 
five years.

"We didn't used to have so many lung and liver cancer cases in the 
past," said Xie Linyou, 61. Xie himself was diagnosed with liver cancer 
last month.

Village head Chen Jianfeng said the local government had sent an 
investigation team to visit every household to hear the villagers' 
complaints and discuss details of a technological overhaul with the plant.

Senior executives of the privately-owned plant were nowhere to be found 
Wednesday and only an office manager was answering the phone. "I think 
we'll need help from the government for a technological upgrade," he 
said on condition of anonymity.

By Tuesday night, the incident had paralyzed more than 20 trash 
collection centers in Jiaxing, which together dispose of more than400 
tonnes of rubbish daily. Workers wearing face masks had to pile up the 
rubbish -- in bags or without packages -- along the streets.

"The street has been stinking for four says. We have repeated our 
complaints to the government," said a resident surnamed Yang. He said he 
and his neighbors in downtown Jiaxing had to keep their windows shut.

Jiaxing, a city with about 4 million people, is a boomtown in Zhejiang 
Province.

Several other Chinese cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Changzhou in 
the eastern Jiangsu Province, and Qinhuangdao in Hebei Province, have 
built similar plants to turn trash into a power source.

The incident has not disrupted power supplies in Jiaxing, as power 
generated in garbage treatment accounts for a small proportion of the 
city's total supplies, a spokesman with the city government told Xinhua 
on Wednesday.

Source: Xinhua








http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-11/26/content_10417082.htm

China toy factory board agree to renew labor contracts after violent 
protests

DONGGUAN, Guangdong, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) -- A leading toy producer in south 
China's Guangdong Province has agreed to renew its labor contracts with 
some senior employees following a violent protest by employees on 
Tuesday, a Chinese official said Wednesday.
The board of directors of the Hong Kong-funded Kader toy factory in the 
Zhongtang Township in Dongguan City has also agreed to, in accordance 
with the law, offer a new plan about giving economic compensation and 
bonuses to the employees who terminated their contracts, said Li Zhihui, 
head of the Zhongtang Township.
More than 500 employees in Kader clashed with factory security guards, 
smashed factory offices and police vehicles Tuesday night in a labor 
dispute.
Most of them had been told by their employer that it would terminate 
their contracts with an average compensation of one month's wages. That 
would be less than 1,000 yuan (about 143 U.S. dollars) for most 
employees, a protesting employee told Xinhua early on Wednesday.
In addition, the employer said it would give a bonus to those employees 
who had worked there for at least seven years and who had made no 
mistakes in the past, Li said.
According to the plan, a year's work for Kader qualified an employee for 
a month's bonus -- that would be 1,030 yuan a month for office clerks 
and 770 yuan a month for workers.
"But once an employee had made a mistake, he or she wouldn't get the 
bonus. It's none other than this precondition that sparked discontent 
among employees and led to the protest," he said.
At least 80 employees, having worked for nearly 10 years at the factory, 
were unhappy with the arrangement and demanded more compensation, a 
protesting employee told Xinhua early on Wednesday.
"They rallied at the company's gate late Tuesday afternoon and were soon 
joined by their co-workers," said a witness on condition of anonymity.
About 1,000 police and security guards were called in to disperse the 
crowd. This infuriated the protestors, who overturned a police vehicle, 
smashed at least four police motorbikes and broke windows and computers 
in the factory's office building, said the witness and a spokesman with 
the township public security bureau.
Witnesses said at least five employees were injured. This figure has not 
been confirmed by police.
The violence had stopped by Wednesday morning.
The factory managers fled their offices on Tuesday night.
The employees claimed their employer, the Hong Kong-based Kader Holdings 
Co. Ltd. that produces toys for several major international brands, was 
trying to evade its obligations under China's labor contract law, which 
came into effect early this year.
The new law requires employers to sign unlimited-term contracts with 
employees who have worked for more than 10 years. Some employers, 
however, believe such contracts will be a burden.
Liu Xiyuan from the central province of Hunan, who has been working at 
Kaida for 21 years, said he turned down compensation equivalent to eight 
months' wages when his contract expired on Nov. 19. "If I had accepted 
the compensation, it would have meant all my 21 years of work wouldn't 
count," said Liu, 45.
One employee, who refused to give his name, said he accepted 4,000 yuan 
in compensation for having seven years of work written off.
Kaida, which employs more than 6,500 people, terminated contracts with 
380 employees on Nov. 19. Another 216 contracts had been scheduled to be 
terminated on Wednesday.
Li said the protest was not a result of the global financial crisis.
"It's because the employer fails to understand the labor contract law 
well and lacks thoughtful consideration while making arrangements for 
the employees," he said.
He said the township government has set up a working team to handle the 
issue together with the employer and employees.
"We will strictly abide by the labor contract law and prevent further 
problems from arising," he added.

Editor: Du Guodong







http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/11/26/asia/AS-China-Factory-Riot.php

Workers riot at Chinese toy factory

The Associated Press
Published: November 26, 2008

DONGGUAN, China: It started as a pay dispute at a southern Chinese toy 
factory. But it quickly turned into a riot as laid-off workers tapped 
into a network of friends and unemployed laborers who flipped over a 
police car, stormed into the plant and smashed office computers.
The latest violent protest to rock China's export machine was still 
simmering Wednesday at the massive plant, which makes Nerf toys for the 
U.S. company Hasbro Inc. The volatility underscored the urgency of 
China's efforts to keep stoking an economy weakened by the global 
financial crisis.
To protect jobs and social stability, the central government recently 
signed off on a multibillion-dollar stimulus plan. Officials have also 
been urging factories to avoid large layoffs and to try retraining 
employees to keep them off the streets.
"When times are bad economically, a small incident can rapidly become a 
big one," said local Communist Party official Guo Chenming, who was 
monitoring the situation Wednesday outside the restive toy factory in 
the city of Dongguan.
Tempers began flaring Tuesday when the plant's Hong Kong owner, Kader 
Holdings Company Ltd., prepared to lay off 216 migrant workers at the 
factory that employs 6,500. About 80 senior workers claimed they were 
getting shortchanged on their severance pay, and they mobilized a mob of 
500 — mostly other unemployed workers and friends, Guo said.
The workers battled security guards, turned over a police car, smashed 
the headlights of police motorcycles and forced their way through the 
factory's front gate, Guo said. They went on a rampage in the plant's 
offices, damaging 10 computers, the company said.
The account was confirmed Wednesday by several of the 200 or so jobless 
laborers peacefully milling around the street in front of the four-story 
factory complex covered in soot-stained white and green tiles. Small 
groups of workers inside the factory pressed against glass windows and 
stared at the crowd below. When their shift ended, they flooded into the 
streets and mixed with the angry workers.
"The factory's management and the local officials really look down on 
the workers," said one laid-off worker who would only give his surname, 
Qiao, because he feared criticizing the company might jeopardize his 
chance of getting any compensation.
Qiao accused the police of igniting the riot. "The workers just got 
angry because the police hit them first," said the 30-year-old migrant 
from the southwestern province of Sichuan, devastated by last May's 
monster earthquake.
Guo doubted the allegation, saying it would be foolish for the police to 
incite such a massive crowd. He also said the 80 workers didn't get full 
severance because of bad performance. But he added that the company 
didn't fully understand new labor laws and was also to blame.
Kader's executive director Ivan Ting said the workers were compensated 
beyond what is required by Chinese labor law, but did not give a figure. 
A company statement said the toymaker is financially sound.
Basic assembly line jobs at the factory pay only 770 yuan ($112) a 
month, and overtime is rare now that most of the Christmas orders have 
been fulfilled. Shipping containers on trucks in the factory's courtyard 
were loaded with Hasbro boxes containing Nerf toys.
Whipping up a mass protest can be easy in this part of southern China — 
called the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong province. It's one of the 
country's biggest manufacturing bases, and most of the residents are 
migrant workers who work long hours in factories and live in crowded 
dormitory rooms.
News of protests or mistreatment quickly spreads via mobile phone text 
messages. Crowds can quickly swell with gawkers who eventually join the 
action. Workers from the same provinces often band together and support 
each other.
It's a major concern in major industrial zones in Guangdong, which has 
been hit hard by a series of factors: rising costs of wages and raw 
materials along with currency fluctuations and the global financial 
crisis. More than 7,000 companies in Guangdong have gone bust or moved 
elsewhere in the first nine months of the year, the official China Daily 
newspaper recently reported.
American businessman David Levy said local officials are intensely 
concerned about the economy. They have been visiting factories to make 
sure the plants are financially healthy and not ready to disgorge 
hundreds of angry workers onto the streets, he said.
But Levy, a general manager Lastar Electronics Co., Ltd., which makes 
cables in Dongguan, said most reports of plant closures are overblown or 
involve small operations that had problems before the recent global 
economic woes set in.
"What I usually hear is, 'Yeah, we're down 20 to 30 percent.' You can 
take that hit unless you have a problem to begin with," he said. "All of 
the turmoil is not bubbling out into the streets."
But last month, one of Dongguan's biggest toy factories shut down, 
laying off 7,000 workers who protested in the streets for days demanding 
unpaid wages. The plant made toys for Hasbro and Mattel Inc.
More closures will come in the next few months because of the global 
financial turbulence, said Lo Foo-cheung, vice president of The Chinese 
Manufacturers' Association of Hong Kong. Lo said companies will be 
cutting workers despite the government's warnings to keep them.
"At the end of the day, it's a business decision," Lo said. "It's all 
about survival."
_____
Associated Press writer Dikky Sinn in Hong Kong and researcher Zhao 
Liang in Beijing contributed to the report.








http://www.mallenbaker.net/csr/page.php?Story_ID=2323

China: Kader settles labour dispute after violent protests
A News item from Business Respect, Issue Number 142, dated 28 Nov 2008
Kai Da, a leading toy manufacturer in Guangdong, has agreed to renew 
labour contracts with employees following violent protests against its 
plans to terminate them.
During the protests, more than 500 employees attacked the company's 
offices and overturned a police vehicle. They had been told that their 
contracts were to be terminated with around one month's pay as 
compensation. Some of the workers had been with the company for 
approaching ten years.

As well as renewing contracts for a number of workers, the company is 
improving compensation terms for those still expected to leave.

Five workers were injured during the protests.






http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D94MHJFG1&show_article=1

LEAD: Sacked toy factory workers clash with police in S. China+


HONG KONG, Nov. 26 (AP) - (Kyodo)—(EDS: UPDATING)
About 500 people clashed with police in southern China's Guangdong 
Province on Tuesday after some 80 workers at a toy factory were 
reportedly assaulted and thrown out after being sacked, according to 
media reports Wednesday.
The Southern Metropolis Daily, a mainland newspaper, said 216 workers 
were laid off after their contracts expired Wednesday and about 80 of 
them had disputes with the factory over compensation pay.


Hong Kong media reported the disgruntled workers on Tuesday drew 500 
people, other jobless and migrant workers, to smash the factory office 
and fought with the security staff, overturning five police cars, 
leaving at least five people injured.
The crowd was dispersed late in the evening after the factory promised 
to talk to the workers Wednesday, the Hong Kong Commercial Daily said.
Wang Xingbing, one of the injured workers now in hospital, said they 
were sitting on a stairway inside the factory, hoping to meet with the 
management over their compensation when some security staff came down, 
stepped upon them and hit them, Cable TV reported.
Li Jianbo, a township Communist Party official, denied the police and 
security staff had attacked the workers.
"The five workers were injured during worker's shift changes," Li said 
by telephone. "There were so many people around, it is impossible that 
police officers and security guards would assault the protesting workers 
in front of others."
Li said the factory has been following the newly imposed labor law and 
compensating accordingly to all the workers whose contracts expired.
"The protesting workers were angry that they weren't awarded the hard- 
working bonuses that were given to others," Li said, adding the 
government, the factory and the workers have reached consensus and 
factory operation has resumed normal.
The toy factory in Dongguan, the industrial hub in Guangdong, is a 
subsidiary of Hong Kong-listed Kader Holdings and it employs about 6,500 
workers there.
A company statement said the workers have been promptly compensated and 
it has rewarded staff members who have served more than five years and 
with outstanding records with extra bonuses, but it did not say why the 
clash occurred.






http://news.morningstar.com/newsnet/ViewNews.aspx?article=/DJ/200812030243DOWJONESDJONLINE000357_univ.xml

100 Police Staff Protest Over Pay In China - Rights Group12-3-08 2:43 AM 
EST | E-mail Article | Print Article
BEIJING (AFP)--About 100 police employees damaged government property in 
a highly unusual protest in China over inadequate pay, a human rights 
group said Wednesday.
The three-hour protest occurred Tuesday in the city of Leiyang in the 
central province of Hunan, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for 
Human Rights and Democracy said in a statement.
At one point, the demonstrators damaged chairs and other property at the 
local Communist Party headquarters, it said.
The majority of the protesters were auxiliary police, civilians hired to 
back up regular police officers and patrol work but who don't have full 
police powers, it said.
However, some full-time police officers were also among the crowds, the 
statement said.
Citing witnesses, the group said the protesters surrounded the building 
around 11 a.m.
They complained about low salaries and allowances, it added.
The incomes of vast numbers of Chinese consumers have been squeezed in 
the past couple of years by runaway inflation that has only recently 
tapered off.
The protest lasted about three hours, ending when party officials urged 
the demonstrators to disperse.
Calls to Leiyang police and government headquarters went unanswered 
Wednesday.
China sees tens of thousands of public protests each year by members of 
society who have been marginalized or left behind in the country's 
economic boom.
However, such protests are typically quelled by police, not initiated by 
them.
The Hong Kong-based group said local officials in Leiyang were in 
"urgent" meetings Wednesday over the incident.











http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/393888/1/.html

100 police staff protest over pay in China
Posted: 03 December 2008 1710 hrs

BEIJING: About 100 police employees damaged government property in a 
highly unusual protest in China over inadequate pay, a human rights 
group said on Wednesday.

The three-hour protest occurred on Tuesday in the city of Leiyang in the 
central province of Hunan, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for 
Human Rights and Democracy said in a statement.

At one point, the demonstrators damaged chairs and other property at the 
local Communist Party headquarters, it said.

The majority of the protesters were auxiliary police, civilians hired to 
back up regular police officers and patrol work but who do not have full 
police powers, it said.

However, some full-time police officers were also among the crowds, the 
statement said.

Citing witnesses, the group said the protesters surrounded the building 
around 11am.

They complained about low salaries and allowances, it added.

The incomes of vast numbers of Chinese consumers have been squeezed in 
the past couple of years by runaway inflation that has only recently 
tapered off.

The protest lasted about three hours, ending when party officials urged 
the demonstrators to disperse.

Calls by AFP to Leiyang police and government headquarters went 
unanswered on Wednesday.

China sees tens of thousands of public protests each year by members of 
society who have been marginalised or left behind in the country's 
economic boom.

However, such protests are typically quelled by police, not initiated by 
them.

The Hong Kong-based group said local officials in Leiyang were in 
"urgent" meetings on Wednesday over the incident.

- AFP/so







http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/JL11Ad01.html

Taxi protests test China's tolerance
By Stephen Wong

SHANGHAI - Tens of thousands of taxi drivers in various Chinese cities 
walked off the job successively in the past month in what might be 
China's biggest taxi strike in history. But what is even more 
unprecedented is that authorities have remained tolerant of the action 
and subsequent media coverage of the strikes.

The strike started in Chongqing municipality in early November, and taxi 
drivers in cities including Sanya in Hainan province, Yongdeng in 
Guizhou province and Shantou and Guangzhou in Guangdong soon followed, 
protesting high rentals and unfair competition from unlicensed taxis.

It's not the first time Chinese cabbies have launched a strike. Yetin 
the past, such cases were sporadic and isolated, going unnoticed by 
outsiders as the state-controlled media refrained from reporting on 
protests while the government covered them up.

But this time the authorities have not only allowed the state-run media 
to freely cover the strikes; they have also acted promptly to hold 
dialogue with the cabbies, a sign the government might be growing more 
tolerant of workers' protests amid growing labor conflicts in an 
economic downturn.

After a series of riots this year, the government may have learned that 
crackdowns on protests do not reduce social conflicts. The issue now is 
how far the government is willing to go along this line.

Wave of strikes by cab drivers
The series of strikes started on November 3 in Chongqing, where 9,000 
cabs operating in the city center stopped working over high fees charged 
to drivers, unfair competition from unlicensed cabs and a shortage of 
fuel. The violent strike lasted two days, resulting in more than 100 
cars being smashed and police arresting a number of drivers.

Drivers in other cities soon followed. On November 10, hundreds of cab 
drivers rallied in front of the government building of Sanya, a tourist 
city in the island province of Hainan. Police detained 21 suspects for 
smashing taxis after their drivers refused to participate in the strike.

On November 10, in Landeng county in northwestern Gansu province, over 
100 cab drivers went on strike. On November 19, nearly 300 drivers in 
the suburbs of Chongqing walked out. The wave of strikes spread to 
booming southern Guangdong province days later, with over 300 drivers on 
strike in Shantou on November 21. On December 1, over 10,000 taxi 
drivers walked out in Guangzhou, Guangdong's capital.

The scale of the strikes is unprecedented. The drivers said they had 
long been heavily exploited by taxi companies, which monopolize the 
market by controlling taxi licenses and fares.

Most taxi companies in China obtained licenses from the government at 
very low prices in the early 1990s. A taxi driver has to pay about three 
quarters of his revenue to the taxi company to rent a licensed taxi.

In Chongqing, where the strike started, taxi companies earn about 40,000 
yuan (US$5,827) a month from each taxi. "This is probably the most 
profitable trade in the world," said Huang Qifan, vice mayor of Chongqing.

On the contrary, cab drivers have to work over 10 hours a day to earn an 
income that barely supports their families. Many drive unlicensed cabs, 
which are illegal but much more profitable than regular cabs, stealing 
business from regular cab drivers. Meanwhile, the conditions of cab 
drivers have worsened this year thanks to rising fuel prices and cab 
rental fees, increasing numbers of private cars and fuel surcharges.

Unusual response
The drivers' actions worked. In the cities where strikes stranded 
commuters, officials vowed to provide more fuel supplies, eliminate the 
extra fees that drivers are required to pay taxi companies and crack 
down on unlicensed cabs.

The media's sympathetic coverage and the Chongqing government's swift 
response have given the strikers the upper hand in negotiations with the 
cab companies.

On the third day of their strike, Chongqing's driver representatives 
received a rare audience by Bo Xilai, Chongqing party chief and a 
politburo member. The meeting was unusually high profile - it was 
broadcast live by the local TV station.

This has clearly set an example for governments of other cities. The 
local governments, which used to blame "a small number of criminals" for 
"instigating" the masses into street demonstrations, did not attribute 
the strikes to instigators this time. Instead of its usual 
iron-handedness, the government has given an ear to the drivers' 
complaints and has taken quick measures to solve their problems.

In Sanya, three government officials in charge of the city's transport 
stepped down after the strike. Yang Fengchun, executive vice mayor of 
Sanya, said it was the first time senior city officials had taken 
responsibility for unrest. "The penalty was heavy," said Yang.

China's state-controlled media gave wide and in-depth coverage of the 
strikes and generally showed sympathy to the drivers. The Communist 
Party's flagship newspaper, the People's Daily, reported the strikes on 
its front page on December 2, urging reforms for the current taxi 
license system. State-run Xinhua News Agency has reported almost every 
cabbie strike in the past month.

China's cab drivers have walked off the job before. For instance, 
Chongqing cab drivers went on strike seven years ago. Mary Gallagher, an 
associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan, 
said taxi drivers were generally well organized as they could coordinate 
over their radio systems and "know they have a lot of power, being 
essential to transportation". However, those strikes didn't receive the 
amount of government and media attention bestowed on the recent 
Chongqing strike.

A more tolerant government
The way the government has dealt with the latest Chongqing strike is in 
sharp contrast to its earlier attitude toward social unrest.

In July, after a protest-turned-riot over the death of a middle-school 
girl in Weng'an, Guizhou province, Guizhou's party chief blamed the 
unrest on instigation by "members of criminal networks", although he 
acknowledged that the riot was also caused by "some social 
contradictions that have accumulated for a long time, and many 
controversies, some of which never received the attention they deserve, 
some of which were not solved in time", according to Xinhua.

Chongqing's tolerance of the cabbies' protest might be related to its 
relatively liberal leader Bo Xilai. Having served as China's minister of 
commerce and mayor of Dalian city, Bo is widely regarded as a capable 
and open-minded official, and insiders said he told the country's media 
censors not to screen out news about the strike.

The attention the government has given to the strikes also highlights 
official concerns about maintaining social stability as economic growth 
slows to a pace that may not provide enough jobs and wealth for the 
population.

Protests are already becoming more common across China as 
dissatisfaction grows over issues ranging from tough living standards to 
corruption.

"There's a lot more coming, though the government will probably take a 
very flexible approach to the strikes as long as it's in their interests 
to do so," Andreas Lauffs, a partner at the law firm of Baker & McKenzie 
specializing in Chinese labor issues, was quoted by the Wall Street 
Journal.

The central government is apparently trying to make grassroots officials 
adopt this new approach toward social unrest. The communist party held 
its first-ever leadership training program for over 2,000 grassroots 
officials last month. An important part of the program involved learning 
how to tackle social unrest, the Economic Observer reported. In the 
seven-day training program, the officials were told to hold a dialogue 
with protesters, rather than blaming them for being instigated by 
"criminals".

How tolerant? The cabbie strikes also underscore China's urgent need to 
deal with labor conflicts. Yet how China can deal with increasing labor 
conflicts and strikes under its current political system remains in 
question.

On November 13, the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) issued 
a notice urging all taxi companies to establish trade unions. Union 
officials said this would help drivers negotiate with their companies 
and avoid extreme measures such as strikes.

But according to Chinese law, trade unions are based on individual 
companies, which pay membership fees to the ACFTU. As a result, trade 
unions are largely influenced by company management and can hardly speak 
for the workers.

In 2005, the Chongqing trade union refused an application from a group 
of cab drivers to establish a trade union, saying they had to go through 
their companies. The leader of the drivers, Yang Xiaoming, later lost 
his job for repeatedly petitioning for drivers' rights.

Even the media have questioned whether a trade union setup by an 
employer could truly protect labor rights. "Even if the taxi trade 
unions are established, will they be controlled by the government and 
the employers, and ignore the interests of the drivers?" asked the 
popular newspaper Southern Metropolis Daily.

Without a trade union that can truly represent their rights, workers 
still have a long way to go and China still has an uphill battle in 
building a "harmonious society".

The government's tolerance will be put to further tests with more social 
unrest expected to erupt amid the financial crisis and widening wealth 
gap. And not all officials are tolerant. The Guizhou government banned 
cabbies from going on strike after drivers in a county there walked off 
the job. The Guizhou ban was denounced by the media, but the central 
government did not comment.

The Chinese constitution makes no mention of strikes, either for or 
against. The lawmakers scrapped a stipulation on workers' rights from 
the constitution in 1982, saying that the rights of employers and 
employees were the same under the socialist system. But the constitution 
does not stipulate a ban on strikes, either.

In the Trade Union Law publicized in 1992, unions are asked to negotiate 
on behalf of the workers with the employers if workers refuse to work. 
This means Chinese workers have a "de facto" right to strike, said Gao 
Yifei, a profession at Southwest University of Political Science and 
Law. A lot of Chinese scholars are calling on the government to 
constitutionalize workers' rights to strike.

It's probably in the government's best interests to deal with the cab 
drivers' complaints, but how far the government will go in its tolerance 
of demonstrations is still unclear. Without political reforms, the fate 
of the protesters still lies with the government, not themselves.

Stephen Wong is a freelance journalist based in Shanghai.

(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. 
Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)







http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china/shanghai-farmers-protest-land-expropriation-9068.html

Shanghai Farmers Protest Land Expropriation
By Gu Qing'er
Epoch Times Staff Dec 24, 2008
Share: Facebook Digg del.icio.us StumbleUpon

For four consecutive days, farmers whose lands were illegally seized 
have been protesting in front of the Maqiao Town Hall in Minxing 
District in Shanghai. (The Epoch Times)
Beginning December 15, hundreds of farmers who were forced to give up 
their lands to local government officials, gathered in front of the 
Maqiao Town Hall in Minxing District, Shanghai. They protested asking 
the government to compensate them for their loss. After four days the 
farmers continue their protest at town hall. The police mobilized 
hundreds of officers to the scene to guard against protesters. On 
December 15, residents in the town of Huacao and Minpuer Bridge of the 
same district in Shanghai also held demonstrations.
It is learned that Gao Fengchi, Party Chief of Qizhong Village in Maqioa 
Town, and Chen Liangyu, former Shanghai Party Chief, illegally took 
title and control of 5,000 acres of land in the town of Maqiao for the 
Liangyu Construction Project. The land encompassed eight villages and 
1600 acres of farm land. The illegal land takeover resulted in the farm 
lands being wasted for five years and over 3,000 houses forcibly 
demolished. The government officials threatened and detained farmers who 
refused to cooperate and even set fire to their properties.
Mr. Dong from Maqiao told the Epoch Times on December 18, “About 1,000 
people went to the town hall to protest yesterday. Over 2,000 acres of 
our land were sold and we did not get a penny. That is why we go to the 
government to ask for compensation. It’s been four days. I just got back 
from today’s protest. We got there at 8 a.m. and the police were there 
before us. There were about 200 officers today and 300 yesterday.”
The Shanghai authorities mobilized all kinds of police units and sent a 
dozen police vehicles to the scene to guard against protesters. In the 
process, there were small conflicts. Some took pictures of police 
beating up peasants but their camera was taken away.

Farmers whose lands were illegally taken have been protesting in front 
of the Maqiao Town Hall in Minxing District in Shanghai. (The Epoch Times)
Dong said that most of the farmers refused to relocate because of the 
ridiculous compensation. The local regime wrote threatening letters to 
those who refused to leave their properties, beat them, cut off their 
power and water, or even prevented them from going to work. For those 
who fought back, the regime sent thugs to set their houses on fire.
Deng said, “How do I make a living without a farmland? (The government) 
did not arrange work for us and we were on our own. For those of us who 
are not highly educated, what can we do? The corrupt officials are 
making all the money. We will not allow them to do this and will 
continue to protect our rights. We will leave when we get our 
compensation.”
During the morning of December 15, residents from Huacao in the same 
district of Shanghai also held a peaceful demonstration. They protested 
the regime failing to supervise construction vehicles that polluted the 
environment with dust and brought harm to residents’ health.
A witness confirmed that the authorities mobilized many police officers, 
restricting access zones and deploying various riot vehicles. There was 
traffic control for miles away from the protest scene.
When being asked why there were so many protests in the Minxing District 
in Shanghai, Mr. Chen from Huacao said it was because the Shanghai City 
government started new construction projects and tore down houses in the 
district. “If the government follows every procedure legally, there 
wouldn’t be such problems. Now the government robs our land and doesn’t 
even care! We know the laws and there is no way we will swallow it. More 
and more people are standing up for their rights.”







http://www.chinapost.com.tw/china/local-news/other/2008/12/20/188452/Protesting-workers.htm

December 20, 2008 3:25 am TWN, By William Foreman, AP
Protesting workers in standoff with police
DONGGUAN, China -- Police held hundreds of protesting workers inside a 
suitcase factory in southern China to prevent them from staging a public 
demonstration about a wage dispute Friday, a worker said from the compound.
The standoff at the Jianrong Suitcase Factory in the southern city of 
Dongguan is the latest unrest arising from layoffs, poor working 
conditions and slashed wages in China, where thousands of companies have 
gone bust in recent months.
On Friday, more than 30 police, some with helmets and riot shields, were 
guarding the front of the factory.
Workers could be seen pressed up against the metal bars at the 
dormitory’s windows looking out at the police. About 30 workers were on 
the roof of the building.
One worker leading the protest, Zhang Guohua, said police had been 
holding about 300 laborers inside the factory and an adjacent five-story 
dormitory since Friday morning to prevent them from demonstrating publicly.
“One girl tried leaving her dorm but was beaten on the head with a metal 
baton and was sent to hospital with serious injuries. They just don’t 
want us to protest. If we try to leave, they will beat us even more,” 
Zhang told The Associated Press by telephone from inside the dorm.
The protest started Dec. 15 outside the factory, Zhang said, but after 
company officials said they would not negotiate, the workers went to the 
Dongguan city government office to seek help on Thursday, where some of 
them were beaten by police.
The workers stayed outside the government office overnight, waiting for 
a resolution but were forced back to the factory compound in the morning 
by police officers, police dogs and trucks, ordered by the local 
government, he said.
In the early afternoon, about 100 workers pushed their way through the 
police and out of the plant compound shouting, “We have no human rights 
here!” Police videotaped the laborers as they gathered in a small 
alleyway near the factory gate.
“They have been trying to lock us up in the factory because they don’t 
want us to come out and have the international media cover our protest,” 
said one of the workers who escaped, Dai Houxue.
Zhang said about a dozen people were sent to the hospital with injuries 
after being hit by police when they were being forced inside.
Officers guarding the factory gate, which was cordoned off with police 
tape, refused to answer a reporter’s questions.
More than 7,000 companies in Guangdong, the province across the border 
from Hong Kong, closed down or moved elsewhere in the first nine months 
of the year, the official China Daily newspaper recently reported.
The factory problems put further pressure on a government struggling to 
maintain social stability in areas where factories were struggling 
because of rising wage and raw material costs, even before the onset of 
the global financial crisis.
Zhang said the suitcase company had ceased operations Dec. 15, and some 
workers had not been paid for 2{ months. Those who had not been paid had 
been told to expect only 60 percent of their salaries, while those who 
had been paid would have to return 40 percent of what they received, he 
said.
Zhang said his monthly salary was 2,000 yuan (US$290), while other 
workers at the factory earned half that amount.






http://www.euronews.net/2008/12/19/rare-demonstrantion-of-public-protest-in-china/

Chinese in street protest as financial crisis bites 19/12/08 17:02 CET
In a rare demonstration of public protest, workers in the Dongguan 
province of China have clashed with police after taking to the streets 
over unpaid wages and factory closures. “We haven’t eaten in days,” said 
one protester, reflecting the increasing desperation of those who either 
have not been paid or whose jobs have gone.
An estimated 6.7 million Chinese are believed to have been made 
unemployed since the global financial crisis hit what used to be known 
as the “World’s workshop”. A police officer at the demonstration said he 
understood the protesters’ worries but the law had to be obeyed. 
Demonstrations are illegal in China. But with unemployment due to hit a 
new high in the new year, analysts say social stability is now seriously 
threatened.







http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/778017

Chinese protest chef's death from 'overwork'
Reuters
Last updated 00:32 30/12/2008
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Chinese workers have protested outside a garment factory in the southern 
manufacturing hub of Guangdong after the death of a colleague they said 
was from overwork.
The worker, a chef in a Dongguan factory in his 40s, had worked more 
than 10 straight days before his death on Friday, the Guangzhou Daily 
said on its website amid rising factory closures sparked by the global 
economic crisis and government concern about escalating unrest.
"The chef's family and the workers were not satisfied with the 
compensation given by the factory," the report said, adding that there 
were hundreds of protesters. "They threatened to protest further this 
afternoon."
The report did not say how the chef died.
A police officer in Humen town in Dongguan confirmed the protest, but 
said it was not as big as the newspaper said.
"Lots of the people are just onlookers," the officer, who gave his 
surname Wang, said by telephone. "In an economic crisis, such cases 
happens frequently."








http://www.hkhkhk.com/engpro/messages/2522.html

Dozens injured in clash in China after village election: watchdog

Kyodo
182 ¦r
2008 ¦~ 12 ¤ë 12 ¤é 21:11
Kyodo News
¬^¤å
(c) 2008 Kyodo News
HONG KONG, Dec. 12 -- Two camps of supporters in a village committee 
election in northern China clashed with each other Friday, leaving 50 
people injured, a human rights watchdog said.
The dispute happened in the morning when about 1,000 villagers from 
Wangjiazhuang village in Shanxi Province fought each other before 300 
riot police officers arrived at the scene, the Information Center for 
Human Rights and Democracy said.
The Hong Kong-based watchdog said about 50 villagers were injured and as 
many as 200 people were arrested by the police.
The center said both the villagers and the government fielded their own 
candidates, and some villagers alleged the government-backed candidate, 
with the financial support of businesses, offered bribes to voters.
China does not allow direct elections except at the village committee level.
According to the Civil Affairs Ministry, 623,690 villages elected 
village committees by the end of 2007, while the ministry estimated that 
3 percent of the rural votes had been bought, local media has reported.
==Kyodo






http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1448013.php/Hundreds_riot_over_village_election_in_China_group_says_

Hundreds riot over village election in China, group says
Asia-Pacific News
Dec 12, 2008, 11:16 GMT
Beijing - More than 1,000 people confronted at least 300 Chinese riot 
police on Friday after they were angered by alleged vote-buying in a 
village election, a rights group reported.
About 50 villagers were injured and police detained some 200 protestors 
after the riot on Friday morning in Pingyao county in the northern 
province of Shanxi, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human 
Rights and Democracy said.
The election for new members of the village committee in Wangjiazhuang, 
in Pingyao's Nanzheng township, was scheduled to take place on Saturday.
But the villagers rallied after reports that candidates backed by the 
township government had tried to buy votes, the centre said.
It was not clear if the election would still go ahead on Saturday.
Chinese leaders claim that their commitment to grassroot elections, 
greater openness in governance, and more democracy within the ruling 
Communist Party show that the nation is making progress.
But they have suggested several times in recent months that the 
'socialist modernisation' stage - and therefore the absence of 
multi-party democracy - would last about 100 years.
The government has promised to improve its system of direct elections 
for village heads and village committees, with a possible extension to 
township and even provincial level in the future.
Wang Jinhua of the Ministry of Civil Affairs in August said that 
problems of corruption and vote buying affected a 'small number' of 
elections, estimating the number skewed by vote buying at 3 per cent or 
less.
Communist Party members occupy 56 per cent of the seats on village 
committees and 48 per cent of those on the urban committees, Wang said.
About 73 million of China's 1.3 billion people are Communist Party members.
Last month, Yao Lifa, a legal activist in the central province of Hubei, 
said police held him for nearly two weeks to prevent him from advising 
candidates and voters in local elections.









http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1448154.php/Village_riot_caused_by_compensation_dispute_China_says_

Village riot caused by compensation dispute, China says
Asia-Pacific News
Dec 13, 2008, 9:09 GMT
Beijing - A riot involving hundreds of villages and police in northern 
China's Shanxi province was caused by a dispute over compensation for 
the death of a worker, state media said on Saturday.
Police in Shanxi's Pingyao city said the villagers in Wangjiazhuang were 
led by relatives of a man who died of a heart attack while working as a 
gate keeper at a local agricultural firm, the official Xinhua news 
agency said.
The man's foster son, Duan Qijun, was accused of leading 'more than 150 
people wielding wooden rods to block both gates of the company' on 
Friday morning in a bid to win more compensation. the agency said.
The riot lasted for about two hours until police ended it an and 
detained 77 people for 'disrupting social order'.
Most of the 77 people detained were migrants from other provinces and 
were allegedly paid between 100 yuan and 200 yuan (14 dollars to 29 
dollars) to join the riot, the agency quoted police as saying.
The police were still looking for Duan, it said.
The Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy on 
Friday said the was spurred by alleged vote-buying before a village 
election on Saturday.
The centre said about 50 villagers were injured and around 200 detained.
But Communist Party officials in Pingyao refuted those figures and 
denied that the riot was connected to alleged vote-buying, the agency said.
Elections in the village started as scheduled on Saturday and the 
situation in Wanjiazhuang was 'peaceful', it said.
The riot is the latest in a string of protests reported by state media 
in recent weeks.

















http://www.hkhkhk.com/engpro/messages/2515.html

Riot in Shanghai ends with workers injured, police car damaged
Kyodo
139 ¦r
2008 ¦~ 12 ¤ë 9 ¤é 19:45
Kyodo News
¬^¤å
(c) 2008 Kyodo News
HONG KONG, Dec. 9 -- A dispute between laid off workers and an 
electronic connectors manufacturer in Shanghai ended in a riot that left 
13 workers injured and a police car damaged, a human rights watchdog 
said Tuesday.
The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said three workers 
were beaten by thugs sent by the operator of the Shanghai Yixin Industry 
Co. after negotiations over reduced working hours and compensation failed.
On Monday, as many as 1,000 migrant workers attempting to enter the 
factory because of the beating clashed with 300 police officers deployed 
to the scene, leaving 10 workers hurt and a police car stoned.
The center said two police stations confirmed the riot, but it did not 
say if anyone was arrested.
==Kyodo







http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china/protests-china-schemes-beijing-7485.html

Large-Scale Multiple Protests Break Out in Beijing
By Guo Meilan
Central News Agency Nov 20, 2008

Large scale protests in front of the Beijing Municipal Government on 
Nov. 19. (Youmaker.com screenshot)
Large-scale protests broke out on November 19 in front of the Beijing 
Municipal Government. Over 1,000 people gathered onsite to strike for 
their rights.

Boxun News Network (http://www.boxun.com and http://www.peacehall.com/
news/gb/english/page3.shtml) posted a report on the protest including a 
45 second long video recording, taken by people onsite. See video of 
protests.

According to the report, the protest started at 9 a.m. on November 19. 
Vehicles were forbidden to enter Zhengyi Road where the municipal 
government is located. Over 100 policemen were dispatched to disperse 
the crowed. At 11 a.m., police cordoned off the area surrounding the 
municipal government offices and then arrested some of protestors. Zhou 
Li, a rights activist, who was also the reporter of the incident, told 
Central News Agency that the protesting crowd was composed of citizens 
who were swindled into investing in what was purported to be 
tree-planting in Inner Mongolia, purchasing retail rental space in a 
building in Beijing, as well as those whose homes were demolished with 
no reasonable compensation. The three groups joined their protests 
together as the Beijing Municipal Government is not dealing with any of 
their situations.
Zhou said, that about six months ago, the Yilin Corporation advertised 
on state-run television (CCTV) to encourage people to invest in a 
tree-planting scheme in the arid northern region of Inner Mongolia, 
which lured them to purchase woods, with promises of huge returns within 
eight years. However, what people actually bought are pieces of barren 
land without any trees whatsoever.

A majority of the victims were senior citizens, who invested their life 
savings and pensions. They were swindled for an average of over 100,000 
Yuan (US $14,631) per person, and they made up half of the protestors on 
November 19.

Those people who were swindled in the tree-planting scheme believe that 
the state-controlled CCTV got huge profits from the advertising, but 
cheated people. They think CCTV belongs to the country, so the 
government should take the responsibility.

Another group of protesters were conned into buying “retail rental space 
in a building” in Beijing—cheated by Xinguo Corporation, owned by the 
son of Li Peng, former Premier of China. Similarly, they lost a couple 
of 100,000 Yuan (US $14,631) on average per person. They were last seen 
being taken by police to a big bus, and their whereabouts are currently 
unknown.








http://www.boingboing.net/2008/11/30/nerf-factory-riot-in.html

Nerf factory riot in China
Posted by Cory Doctorow, November 30, 2008 12:17 AM | permalink
Riots are breaking out in factories in Dongguan as bankruptcies and 
layoffs throw thousands out of work with wages owing. South China, "the 
world's factory," is in chaos, faltering. After the mid-autumn festival, 
enormous numbers of workers simply stayed home in the provinces, rather 
than returning to work in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Dongguan.
This AP story talks about a riot in the factory where Nerf toys were 
manufactured for Hasbro -- and no, they didn't fight with Nerf bats.

Tempers began flaring Tuesday when the plant's Hong Kong owner, Kader 
Holdings Company Ltd., prepared to lay off 216 migrant workers at the 
factory that employs 6,500. About 80 senior workers claimed they were 
getting shortchanged on their severance pay, and they mobilized a mob of 
500 — mostly other unemployed workers and friends, Guo said.
The workers battled security guards, turned over a police car, smashed 
the headlights of police motorcycles and forced their way through the 
factory's front gate, Guo said. They went on a rampage in the plant's 
offices, damaging 10 computers, the company said.
The account was confirmed Wednesday by several of the 200 or so jobless 
laborers peacefully milling around the street in front of the four-story 
factory complex covered in soot-stained white and green tiles. Small 
groups of workers inside the factory pressed against glass windows and 
stared at the crowd below. When their shift ended, they flooded into the 
streets and mixed with the angry workers.
"The factory's management and the local officials really look down on 
the workers," said one laid-off worker who would only give his surname, 
Qiao, because he feared criticizing the company might jeopardize his 
chance of getting any compensation.





http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE4AJ1HF20081120?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

Protest-hit China says job stability top priority
Thu Nov 20, 2008 4:32am EST
By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING (Reuters) - Stabilising employment is the top priority for 
China, a minister said on Thursday as he revealed a rise in jobless 
workers triggered by a weakened export sector amid a series of strikes 
and protests.
Unemployment rose in October as the impact of the global financial 
crisis hit China's production heartland. The ranks of jobless are 
expected to rise further in 2009, Minister of Human Resources and Social 
Security Yin Weimin said.
"Stabilising employment is the top priority for us right now," Yin said.
After decades of solid economic growth, China is battling an unknown as 
falling demand for its products triggers factory closures, sparks 
protests and raises fears of popular unrest.
Faltering economic conditions have raised the specter of growth falling 
below 8 percent, which the government regards as a benchmark to create 
enough jobs to sop up excess labor and guarantee social stability.
"This is something we are concerned about. The unemployment situation is 
basically stable this year. But starting in October, unemployment in 
China has begun to show the impact of changes in the international 
economic situation," he said.
"...The global economic crisis is picking up speed and spreading from 
developed to developing countries and the effects are becoming more and 
more pronounced here. Our economy is facing a serious challenge."
Workers in southern and coastal China have gathered at shuttered factory 
gates in the last month, seeking back wages, while local governments vow 
to pursue bosses who have fled.
Yin said the government would try to nip potential unrest in the bud by 
striving to solve half such disputes at the grassroots before they got 
out of control, and set up a fast-track system to deal with them.
China's official urban unemployment rate was still about 4 percent, but 
could tick up to 4.5 percent by the end of the year, and rise further 
next year, Yin said.
"In the first quarter of next year the situation will become yet more 
difficult. But there will be a turnaround from the second quarter," he 
added.
The official figures fail to capture many of the hundreds of millions of 
Chinese who have left villages and sought work in the cities over the 
past three decades.
"It is migrant workers who are affected most severely. Many of them 
either return to their home towns or stay in cities looking for other 
opportunities, but they are not included in our statistics," Yin said.
About 4.5 million jobless workers had been rehired, short of the 
government's goal of 5 million re-hires, Yin said.
Those having difficulty finding new jobs numbered 1.29 million, 
exceeding the government's expectations that 1 million would have 
problems doing so.
(Additional reporting by Lucy Hornby; Editing by Nick Macfie)







http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LO217036.htm

Chinese cabbies clash with police in Guangzhou
24 Nov 2008 16:26:34 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Changes dateline, adds details from Xinhua, paragraphs 6-7)
BEIJING, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Hundreds of taxi drivers in the southern 
Chinese city of Guangzhou clashed with police on Monday during a protest 
against the alleged beating of a cabbie by an official, at a time of 
rising tensions in the trade.
Several hundred cabbies were shown scuffling with police on Hong Kong's 
Cable TV during a march to protest the weekend beating of a local taxi 
driver by three drunken men, one of whom claimed to be a city official, 
according to local media reports.
Authorities denied any of the attackers had been officials, Cable TV 
reported.
"Our pressure is great and our burden heavy," one driver told Cable TV. 
A number of cabbies were shown being dragged to waiting vehicles by 
police officers.
The head of Guangzhou's public security bureau Wu Sha was quoted by the 
China News Agency as saying the drivers should remain calm, while 
pledging to resolve the matter in accordance with the law.
The protesters had dispersed by noon on Monday, China's official Xinhua 
news agency said, adding that police had detained the three who had 
beaten the cab driver.
The man who had claimed to be a government official was actually a 
businessman who had been "sent for labour education for two years for 
mass gambling" in 2000, Xinhua said, without giving the source of its 
information.
In recent weeks, a wave of taxi strikes has broken out across China 
against unlicensed competition, high fuel prices and rising rental fees, 
which have threatened drivers' livelihood as the Chinese economy comes 
under strain from the financial turmoil.
Other signs of recent social strains include mass factory closures and 
protests by newly laid-off workers in China's industrial heartland of 
Guangdong province, riots in northwestern Gansu province and a mass 
petition in Beijing.
Protests and incidents of "mass unrest" have risen in China in recent 
years, sparked by a slew of grievances including official abuse of 
power, land seizures and labour disputes. (Reporting by James Pomfret in 
Hong Kong and Ian Ransom in Beijing; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)








http://www.bt.com.bn/en/asia_news/2008/11/09/hundreds_clash_with_police_in_south_china

Hundreds clash with police in south China

Rare protest: Chinese protesters seen outside a police station in 
Shenzhen, southern China's Guangdong province to protest the death of a 
motorcyclist.Picture: AFP
BEIJING
Sunday, November 9, 2008
HUNDREDS of people clashed with police in a southern Chinese city, 
throwing stones and setting fire to a police car after a motorcyclist 
died while trying to avoid a checkpoint, the Xinhua news agency reported 
yesterday.

The skirmish in Shenzhen, which lasted from Friday afternoon until early 
yesterday morning, started when relatives of the motorcyclist carried 
his body to a local police station and a group of about 30 people 
smashed items in the station and set off fireworks, according to the report.

The crowd later grew to 400 people, with some 2,000 onlookers, police 
said. Some threw stones and set fire to a patrol car before they were 
disbursed by 2am.

The motorcyclist was identified as 31-year-old Li Guochao. Police said 
he was driving an unlicensed motorcycle and had rushed passed a 
checkpoint in the city's Bao'an district, Xinhua reported.

He then turned around at a crossroad and drove back on the other side of 
the road.

At that point, a checkpoint worker threw his walkie-talkie at Li, 
causing him to lose control and strike a lamppost, Xinhua said.

Li's relatives demanded government compensation of 600,000 yuan 
($131,736), according to Xinhua, adding district government officials 
promised an advance of 200,000 yuan, with any final compensation to be 
paid after results of an autopsy.

The checkpoint worker has been detained by police, but Xinhua said the 
city's public security bureau had determined police showed restraint in 
handling the unrest. Protests and incidents of "mass unrest" are rising 
in China.Reuters







http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE4A70MI20081108?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

Hundreds clash with police in China's Shenzhen
Fri Nov 7, 2008 10:14pm EST

BEIJING (Reuters) - Hundreds of people clashed with police in a southern 
Chinese city, throwing stones and setting fire to a police car after a 
motorcyclist died while trying to avoid a checkpoint, the Xinhua news 
agency reported on Saturday.
The skirmish in Shenzhen, which lasted from Friday afternoon until early 
Saturday morning, started when relatives of the motorcyclist carried his 
body to a local police station and a group of about 30 people smashed 
items in the station and set off fireworks, according to the report.
The crowd later grew to 400 people, with some 2,000 onlookers, police 
said. Some threw stones and set fire to a patrol car before they were 
disbursed by 2 a.m.
The motorcyclist was identified as 31-year-old Li Guochao. Police said 
he was driving an unlicensed motorcycle and had rushed passed a 
checkpoint in the Bao'an district of the city, Xinhua reported.
He then turned around at a crossroad and drove back on the other side of 
the road. At that point, a checkpoint worker threw his walkie-talkie at 
Li, causing him to lose control and strike a lamppost, Xinhua said.
The checkpoint worker has been detained by police, but Xinhua said the 
city's public security bureau had determined that police had shown 
restraint in handling the unrest.
Protests and incidents of "mass unrest" had been rising in China -- 
sparked by a wide range of grievances from official abuse of power and 
corruption, seizures of land, and disputes over environmental and 
corporate issues -- but Beijing has not released statistics on protests 
for the past few years.
China's top police official has urged officers to avoid inflaming 
protests at a time of growing and increasingly complex social unrest.
In June angry residents in Weng'an town, Guizhou province, torched and 
ransacked police headquarters and government offices after allegations 
spread that police had covered up the rape and murder of a girl.
(Reporting by Ken Wills; Editing by Alex Richardson)








http://english.eviewweek.com/Weekend-riots-over-motorcyclist-settled.shtml

Weekend riots over motorcyclist settled
Submitted by admin on Mon, 11/10/2008 - 07:54
• Macroeconomy
Source:
China Daily
A riot that broke out over the weekend following the death of a 
motorcyclist in the southern boomtown ofZhenzhenhas been resolved, after 
the local authorities agreed to provide a compensation of 200,000 yuan 
($29,000) to the victim's family, the Xinhua news agency reported on 
Saturday.
The Bao'an district government of Shenzhen reached an agreement with the 
family of Li Guochao, who died on Friday afternoon when he reportedly 
struck a lamppost after trying to break through a checkpoint set up to 
catch unlicensed vehicles.

The authorities will give Li's family the specified amount in advance 
and decide on further compensation based on results of investigations 
into the case, Xinhua reported.

The government also promised the family that no autopsy would be made on 
Li without their attendance.

According to a preliminary investigation, Li was driving an unlicensed 
motorcycle with a passenger behind when he was stopped at a traffic 
checkpoint on Baoshi East Road on Friday morning.

The passenger dismounted, after which Li sped past the checkpoint. A 
worker at the checkpoint surnamed Lai from the sub-district office of 
Shiyan crossed the guardrail in the middle of the road and tried to 
block Li, who reportedly ignored him.

Lai then apparently hurled his intercom phone at Li, who lost control of 
his motorcycle, crashed into a lamppost and sustained serious injuries. 
Lai is under police detention.

Other staff at the office called police and rushed Li to a hospital, but 
he died during treatment at about 12:30 pm, police said.

There were no police officers at the checkpoint at the time of the 
incident, police said. The nearest officer was a traffic policeman on 
duty 300 m away.

However, Li's family believed that the checkpoint had been organized by 
the Shiyan traffic police detachment. They brought more than 30 people 
to the police detachment at about 1 pm and blocked its gate.

At 2:30 pm, the relatives of the dead motorcyclist reportedly carried 
Li's body to the police station, smashed property and set off 
firecrackers. By 5 pm, the crowd at the station had grown to 400, with 
about 2,000 others looking on. People threw stones and set a police car 
alight.

Officials of Bao'an district and the city government were summoned to 
deal with the situation. The public security bureau said that throughout 
incident, the police had shown restraint. The bureau said the crowd had 
dispersed by 2 am on Saturday.








http://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking_news_detail.asp?id=9017

Rail workers clash with farmers over land
(11-04 18:46)
Chinese authorities are investigating an incident in which more than 100 
rail workers carrying iron bars beat local farmers who were obstructing 
work on a high-speed train link.

Railway workers from 17th Bureau Group, a unit of state-owned China 
Railway Construction Corp, clashed with farmers last month on the 
outskirts of Beijing near a construction site for the US$11 billion 
(HK$85.8 billion) high-speed railway from Beijing to Shanghai, local 
media reported.

Rural discontent over government-sanctioned land grabs is rife in 
China's vast countryside, where more than 700 million farmers toil on 
small plots that are owned by the state.

Railway officials have said increasing troubles acquiring land cheaply 
is holding back the expansion of China's rail network.

REUTERS








http://www.capebretonpost.com/index.cfm?sid=184041&sc=145

Last updated at 10:55 AM on 27/10/08

Chinese villagers, timber company guards clash over land payments
The Cape Breton Post

BEIJING — There are reports of another violent land dispute in China.
The official Xinhua news agency says scores of villagers in a remote 
area of Jiangxi province battled with security guards and ransacked the 
offices of a forestry company last week.
Xinhua says the villagers accuse the company of paying too little for 
the use of their land.
It says about 100 police officers were called out to break up the riot.
About 150 villagers ransacked the offices of Luhai Wood Industry Co. 
Ltd., destroying or taking computers, air conditioners and desks.
It says 12 villagers and three police were injured.
They were reportedly angry because they felt payments from the private 
forestry company for use of their land had not kept up with rising land 
values.
Xinhua quotes police as saying about 30 company security guards battled 
with the villagers.
Police arrested eight of the security guards and were seeking an 
unspecified number of other suspects, it said. Police appealed to 
residents to come forward with tips, it said.
No villagers were being sought in connection with the violence and 
authorities were investigating their grievances, Xinhua said.
Phones rang unanswered at the offices of Luhai Wood Industry on Monday 
and police said they did not have any immediate comment.
Violent protests flare regularly across China as citizens demonstrate 
their anger over a range of issues, including official corruption, land 
disputes and dissatisfaction over the environmental effects of 
industrialization.
27/10/08







http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-10/28/content_7147741.htm

15 injured, 8 arrested after E. China riot
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-10-28 08:30
Comments(4) Print Mail
Police in east China said they have arrested eight forestry security 
guards and are seeking others after a riot involving almost 200 people 
last week left 15 injured.
Police also denied reports of deaths in the riot, which broke out just 
before midnight on Thursday in a dispute over land-use rents paid by a 
privately owned forestry company in Jiangxi Province.
Twelve villagers were injured, three of them seriously, after about 150 
residents of Shuanghong Village, Daduan Town in Tonggu County, 
confronted around 30 company security guards, said police.
The villagers attacked the offices of the Luhai Wood Industry Company 
Ltd., destroying or taking away computers, air-conditioners and desks, 
said police.
About 100 public security bureau police were dispatched to the site and 
three of them were injured, one seriously, as they tried to restore 
order, said police. Four police cars were overturned, but they denied 
reports that any of them were set alight.
All of the injured were being treated in hospital, a police spokesman said.
"The security guards were vicious -- they hit anyone they saw," said 
Chen Shilin, 57, the most seriously injured. He suffered three knife 
wounds on his back, four on his head and a broken rib, a doctor said.
Police had posted notices in public places and made appeals on 
television and radio for the public to come forward with any information 
on the incident and on any of the security guards who had since 
disappeared. They said they were seeking no villagers in connection with 
the violence.
Local government officials had also launched an investigation into the 
causes of the villagers' grievances and dispatched a medical team to the 
area, said a county government official.
"Conflicts had happened before when peasants were caught illegally 
felling trees because they were dissatisfied with the company payments," 
said Ye Chirong, leader of the firm's 17-strong eastern security squad.
The company had hired about 30 guards altogether and the conflict had 
involved the western security squad, he said.
Ye said members of his squad had blackmailed villagers who were caught 
illegally felling trees when they should have reported the offences to 
the police according to the law.
The Luhai company leased more than 100,000 mu (6,700 hectares) of forest 
in 2004, paying the peasants 80 yuan for each mu.
Shuanghong was a mountainous village where most of the population of 
2,000 rely on forestry for a living, a county government official said.
The villagers became unhappy with the contracted rents and began felling 
trees after reforms of forest property rights and looser tax policies 
increased land values, the official said.
After government mediation, the company paid a further 6 yuan (76 U.S. 
cents) per mu, the official said.
On Monday, the area appeared quiet and the damage had all been cleared 
up. Part of the plant was preparing to resume production. More than 100 
pieces of lost facilities had been returned to the company by villagers.








http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2008/07/15/2003417510

Migrant workers riot in Zhejiang Province, attack police station

AP, SHANGHAI
Tuesday, Jul 15, 2008, Page 1
Hundreds of migrant workers angry over mistreatment of a fellow worker 
surrounded a police station in eastern China and smashed cars and 
motorbikes, a Hong Kong-based human rights organization said yesterday.
The riot, which began on Thursday in Kanmen in coastal Zhejiang 
Province, lasted three days, the Information Center for Human Rights and 
Democracy said.

Three hundred military police arrived in the town on Sunday and 30 
migrant workers have been detained, the group said. No injuries were 
reported.

A woman who answered the telephone at Kanmen’s public security bureau 
said she saw the demonstration but denied that the workers broke into 
the police station or burned vehicles. The woman, who did not give her 
name, as is common with officials in China, said they only gathered on 
the streets, shouting their protests.

“Break into our PSB? If they did, we would beat them to death,” she said.

The violence comes just weeks after a crowd of 30,000 people in 
southwest China set fire to a police station, angry over what many 
believed was a cover-up of the death of a teenage girl by local authorities.

Such incidents are an embarrassment to officials, especially in the 
run-up to the Beijing Olympics, which begin on Aug. 8.

The Hong Kong-based rights group said the unrest in Kanmen was centered 
around a migrant worker who was beaten by a security guard while trying 
to get a temporary residence permit.

When the worker went with a group of other workers to complain to police 
about the man who beat him, he was detained, triggering the protest in 
which hundreds of workers converged outside the police station, burning 
police cars and motorcycles and later throwing stones, the group said.

The report did not give any other details about the incident, including 
why the worker was beaten.

A notice posted on the Web site of Yuhuan County, which oversees Kanmen, 
said “the July 10 incident is being investigated” but did not describe 
what the incident was.






http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1435881.php/Riot_police_beat_detain_farmers_in_southern_China_

Riot police beat, detain farmers in southern China
Asia-Pacific News
Oct 9, 2008, 11:43 GMT
Beijing - Riot police beat and detained protestors in southern China's 
Guangdong province after more than 500 people blocked a main road 
because of a dispute with local officials, residents and a US-based 
rights group said on Thursday.
'The farmers who were the leaders of the protest were arrested by the 
police,' one local resident told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa by 
telephone from Guangdong's Sanjiang township.
Another local resident said Sanjiang was 'quiet' on Thursday, following 
the riot on Wednesday.
US-based Human Rights in China quoted witnesses as saying more than 500 
people joined the protest and that police used batons to disperse the 
crowd, 'leaving some seriously injured and unconscious.'
The police also detained several residents who recorded the incident on 
their mobile telephones, the group said.
The sit-in was staged to protest local officials' management of the area 
near a dam that collapsed during a recent typhoon in Sanjiang's Shenlei 
village, it said.
Flooding from the dam-burst destroyed crops, fish ponds and other 
property, with villagers blaming the disaster on the officials' decision 
to remove protective palm trees near the dam a few months ago.
Farmers were also angered by the refusal of the local government to 
compensate them for losses suffered after the collapse of the dam, the 
group said.
The incident is the latest sign of growing unrest and violence in rural 
areas, where many residents accuse local officials of corruption and 
abuse of power.









http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/08/28/china.violence/index.html

August 28, 2008 -- Updated 0952 GMT (1752 HKT)

China: 2 policemen dead in ethnic group clash
• Story Highlights
• Clash reported by World Uighur Congress, which is based in Germany
• Chinese police: Unaware of any police deaths or of any incident in the 
region
• Clash in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, home to Sunni Muslim minority
• Millions of Han Chinese migrated into Xinjiang causing unrest among 
Uighurs

(CNN) -- A confrontation in western China has killed two police officers 
and led authorities to detain at least 20 members of the Uighur ethnic 
group, according to an international organization that represents Uighur 
interests.
Two officers were killed, more were severely injured and others suffered 
slight injuries in a confrontation on Wednesday between Uighurs and 
police, said Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the the World Uighur 
Congress, which is based in Germany.
A Chinese police spokesman, however, said she was unaware of any police 
deaths or of any incident in the region in question.
The clash happened in Jiashi County, about 62 miles (100 km) from the 
city of Kashgar, Raxit said. That is in China's Xinjiang Uighur 
Autonomous Region, also known as East Turkistan, a region that is home 
to a Sunni Muslim ethnic minority.
Uighurs in Xinjiang are supposed to enjoy regional autonomy, as 
guaranteed by China's constitution, but some want independence.
Millions of Han Chinese, the country's dominant ethnic group, have 
migrated into Xinjiang over the past 60 years, prompting complaints that 
they dominate local politics, culture and commerce at the expense of the 
Uighurs.
The dissatisfaction has turned violent at times.
On August 4, an attack killed 16 police officers in Kashgar.
Police have detained several hundreds Uighurs as a result of that 
incident, and they've detained at least 20 as a result of clashes 
Wednesday, Raxit said.






http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g9DGAcpJC22ojD44TodVyRFQJ4WA

Chinese police kill six in Xinjiang clash: reports
Aug 29, 2008
BEIJING (AFP) — Chinese police killed six people and arrested three 
others during a clash in the restive Muslim northwest region of 
Xinjiang, state media reported on Saturday.
Police carried out an operation late Friday in Kashgar prefecture in the 
far west of Xinjiang against a group of people suspected of involvement 
in an attack on August 12 in which three security guards were killed, 
the Xinhua and China News agencies said.
They discovered the nine suspects armed with knives in a corn field, 
where they resisted arrest and injured two members of the security 
forces, the agencies said.
The police fought back, killing six of the suspects and wounding the 
three others.
Local police contacted by AFP Saturday refused to comment on the 
reported clash in the remote region which borders Central Asia.
Xinjiang has suffered a wave of violence over the past month, with 16 
policemen killed on August 4 in Kashgar in the most deadly attack.
Six days later, an attack on a police station in Kuqa resulted in the 
deaths of 10 of the attackers and a security guard.
In the August 12 incident, three security guards were killed and a 
fourth wounded by knife-wielding assailants during an attack on a 
checkpoint at Yamanya, a town 30 kilometres (about 20 miles) from Kashgar.
On Wednesday two policemen were killed and five wounded while searching 
a corn field near Kashgar for a suspect connected with an earlier attack.
Analysts have said Xinjiang is enduring its worst violence in years, 
partly triggered by separatists wanting to raise publicity while the 
world spotlight was focused on China for the Beijing Olympics, which 
ended on Sunday.
Many of Xinjiang's 8.3 million Turkic-speaking ethnic Muslim Uighurs say 
they have suffered decades of repression under communist Chinese rule.
Chinese authorities have blamed much of the recent violence on 
Xinjiang's East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which is listed by 
China and the United Nations as a terrorist organisation.





http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26441923/

2 Chinese police killed, 7 wounded in Xinjiang
Crackdown on Muslim Uighur ethnic minority sparked clash, activists say


updated 4:00 p.m. ET Aug. 28, 2008
BEIJING - Chinese police clashed with members of the Muslim Uighur 
ethnic minority in the far western region of Xinjiang, authorities and 
an activist said Thursday, the first reported outbreak of violence in 
the area since two high-profile attacks during the Olympics.
Two Chinese policemen died and seven more were wounded. It was not 
immediately clear what ignited Wednesday's conflict in a village in 
Jiashi County or if any Uighurs were injured.
Activist Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the Germany-based World Uighur 
Congress, said witnesses heard "fierce gunfire" and saw at least 20 
Uighurs arrested — part of what he says is a wider crackdown. He did not 
give any other details.
A public security official said eight Uighurs — seven men and one woman 
— were involved. One man had been captured, but the others were at 
large, said the official, who refused to give his name as is common 
among Chinese officials.
Mu'erbiya, an official from Jiashi County's Communist Party propaganda 
office, said two police officers had died and an investigation was under 
way. Like some Uighurs, she uses one name.
Seven police officers were being treated at the No. 1 People's Hospital 
in Kashgar, about 60 miles west of Jiashi, including one for stab 
wounds, according to a woman at the hospital's emergency center who 
refused to give her name.
China has long said that militants among the region's dominant ethnic 
Uighurs are leading an Islamic separatist movement in Xinjiang, an oil- 
and gas-rich region on the border with Afghanistan, Pakistan and six 
Central Asian nations. The Uighurs are Turkic-speaking Muslims with a 
language and culture distinct from the majority of Chinese.
But critics accuse Beijing of using claims of terrorism as an excuse to 
crack down on peaceful pro-independence sentiment and expressions of 
Uighur identity.
Official says Uighurs trying to split China
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang on Thursday confirmed 
reports of the Jiashi incident but did not provide any details. He 
insisted that there were only sporadic tensions in Xinjiang.
"People of various ethnic groups coexist in harmony and equality, and 
the situation in Xinjiang is generally good," Qin said at a regular 
briefing. "This has nothing to do with any alleged persecution or 
oppression of the Uighur people."
He said that there was a handful of Uighur "terrorist forces attempting 
to create violence and split China" but that the government and 
authorities were cracking down on them.
The predominantly Muslim region saw three deadly attacks during and just 
before the Beijing Olympics. Videos also appeared online threatening the 
games.
The wave of violence began on Aug. 4, four days before the start of the 
competition, in the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar near the border 
with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Two men stole a truck and rammed it into 
a group of police on their morning jog. The men continued attacking with 
homemade bombs and knives, killing 16 police.
Six days later, bombers struck in the west-central Xinjiang county of 
Kuqa, targeting a police station, government building, bank and shops 
owned by Chinese. Police said they killed 10 of the attackers — 
including one woman — while a security guard and a bystander died in the 
violence. State media said another attacker, a 15-year-old girl, was 
injured.
On Aug. 12, attackers jumped from a vehicle and stabbed civilian guards, 
killing three of them at a roadside checkpoint in Yamanya town, near 
Kashgar. The assailants escaped.
No one has claimed responsibility for any of the incidents, though 
government officials have suggested terrorism is behind the violence.
Activist says crackdown on Uighurs should stop
Citing local Uighurs, Raxit, the activist, said large-scale arrests have 
been taking place in Kuqa and Kashgar since the attacks and residents of 
Kuqa are prohibited from traveling outside of the area. Checkpoints also 
have been set up, he said, adding that Wednesday's incident has 
triggered even tighter restrictions.
"It is part of China's worsening crackdown in the area," Raxit said in a 
statement. "The international community should prevent the Chinese 
government from carrying out their systematic crackdown policies on the 
Uighurs."
Police in Kuqa refused to comment on the current situation and 
telephones at police headquarters rang unanswered in Kashgar.
The Uighurs suffered greatly in the 1960s and 1970s when the government 
— caught up in Marxist revolutionary fervor — viewed religion as well as 
minority languages and culture as divisive remnants of feudalism that 
should be abolished.
In the 1980s, the government adopted a more liberal political and 
cultural policy in Xinjiang, but in the following decade resorted to a 
hardline policy after scattered incidents of unrest.






http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=134295

Students in China riot over property dispute Sunday, September 07, 2008
BEIJING: Thousands of students attacked a county government office in 
central China, smashing windows and clashing with riot police, in unrest 
triggered by a property dispute, a rights group said on Saturday.

Students from a high school in Shenqiu county, Henan province, clashed 
with police on Friday morning while trying to stop a developer from 
building apartments on their sports ground, the Information Centre for 
Human Rights and Democracy said in a statement faxed to Reuters.

The students became enraged when two girls were injured in the scuffles, 
and proceeded to surround the local government building at noon (0400 
GMT), the Hong Kong-based rights group said.

“(They) smashed the main building’s entrance and windows. Fires lit by 
some students were put out,” the group said.

The county government called in an emergency detachment of 100 regular 
and armed police to try to disperse the several thousand students at the 
site. Some 20 students were subsequently injured in clashes with police, 
the group said.

A local resident contacted by Reuters by telephone confirmed the report. 
“Of course the developers are in the wrong for trying to take over the 
students’ sports ground,” said the resident, who declined to leave his 
name. Calls placed by Reuters to the county government office went 
unanswered.

Students did not disperse until after 8 p m (1200 GMT), after a 
government official “promised to talk with the developer”, the group 
said. China, with its vast and poor rural population, sees many 
thousands of protests every year, but has been rocked by several 
incidents of bitter rioting in recent months.

Tens of thousands of locals torched government offices and smashed 
police cars in Weng’an county, Guizhou, in June, after claims spread 
that authorities had covered up a teenage girl’s death.






http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1428984.php/Police_quell_more_riots_in_east_south_China_

Police quell more riots in east, south China
Asia-Pacific News
Sep 5, 2008, 10:35 GMT
Beijing - Riot police have quelled two violent protests by thousands of 
people in southern and eastern China, in the latest of several recent 
clashes between ordinary residents and local authorities, officials and 
a rights group said on Friday.
Up to 30 people were detained for questioning after riot police broke up 
a protest by migrant workers demanding compensation for a teenage boy 
who was seriously injured after he climbed into a textile factory in the 
eastern city of Ningbo, police said.
'There are now 20 to 30 under investigation and being interviewed,' a 
police officer in Ningbo's Xiangshan county told Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
dpa by telephone.
The officer said 'mass rioting' broke out after factory workers seized 
the 14-year-old boy as a suspected thief and called police, apparently 
resulting in the boy jumping from a building as the police arrived.
'The reason why he jumped is still under investigation,' he said.
The Xiangshan police officer said the boy was treated by a local 
hospital for serious injuries but was out of danger.
He said no police were injured in the clash with protestors, but the 
Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said 
20 others were injured.
The Information Centre said some 500 migrant workers gathered outside 
the factory on Thursday, and thousands of onlookers swelled the crowd to 
about 10,000 before the riot police arrived.
It said another 50 people were injured and 20 detained after riot police 
clashed with thousands of protestors angered by an illegal fund-raising 
scheme in the southern province of Hunan on Wednesday and Thursday.
The government's official Xinhua news agency said a 'chaotic petition to 
local authorities' on Wednesday and Thursday had blocked roads and 
railways in Hunan's Jishou city.
The protesters surrounded local government offices to demand 
intervention after a local real-estate firm failed to repay the loans 
and interest promised in its illegal fund-raising scheme, the agency said.
Some protesters and onlookers swarmed into the Jishou railway station on 
Wednesday evening but were 'persuaded by officials to leave about an 
hour later,' it said.
The protestors continued to block roads and the railway station on 
Thursday morning.
They dispersed after officials registered the petitioners' claims 
against the real-estate firm and detained company executives, the agency 
said.
The riots are among an increasing number of protests and violent 
incidents in recent years, reflecting simmering unrest over abuse of 
official powers and widespread cynicism towards the ruling Communist 
Party in many poor areas.
In one of the most serious incidents, up to 30,000 people rioted after 
the suspicious death of a teenage girl in the south-western province of 
Guizhou in late June.
The government later said a string of unresolved 'social grievances' and 
encouragement by criminal gangs had sparked the rioting.