| Home > North-East Asia >> China | |
Thousands in Chinese protest village mourn leader
Agence France Presse - December 16, 2011
The villagers of Wukan, in the wealthy southern province of Guangdong, are in open revolt against officialdom, driving out local Communist leaders who they say have been stealing their land for years.
Authorities vowed this week to crack down on the instigators of the unrest in Wukan, which has for months been the scene of occasionally violent protests over land seizures, a hugely contentious issue in China.
Anger boiled over with the arrest last Friday of five villagers, one of whom died Sunday in police custody. Authorities say the 42-year-old man suffered a heart attack, while relatives who saw the body said they believed he had been beaten to death.
On Friday, thousands of villagers gathered in a central square to pay homage to Xue Jinbo, a father of three who was elected head of a provisional village committee when officials abandoned Wukan over the protests.
After a mass ceremony, groups of mourners – many of them in tears – bowed down before a large portrait of Xue erected inside a large tent outside the family home as sombre funeral music played.
The villagers paid their respects to gathered relatives dressed in white – the traditional colour of mourning in China. Many expressed anger at his death, saying he was a good man who had died too young.
"Right now we have only one demand, and that is that they return the body of my father. He belongs to us, not to the government," his adult son Xue Jiandi told AFP.
"I have not seen my father since he died, but my mother and some relatives saw him and from what they said, he was beaten, his fingers were broken, there were marks on his body."
The deceased's nephew saw his body but only after officials stopped him and other relatives from recording the visit.
"Their attitude was not good," Xue Jinxiong, 32, told AFP. "They wanted us to hand over our phones and cameras. We refused. But they wouldn't let us see him until we gave our phones and cameras to the relatives."
The 13,000 residents of Wukan have become a thorn in the side of the Communist party in Guangdong, located on the border with Hong Kong and one of China's wealthiest provinces. Despite attempts to censor the web and a virtual black-out in China's state-run media, weibos – Chinese microblogs similar to Twitter – have buzzed with news of the Wukan protest over the past week.
Dramatic footage posted online of riots in September at a police post outside Wukan showed protesters ransacking police vehicles and police kicking and beating villagers before apparently being driven away.
Searches under terms including Wukan and Xue Jinbo are now blocked under China's strict online censorship system, but images of villagers with bloodied faces and bruised bodies are still being posted on weibos.
In one sign of official unease at the Internet's power to disseminate information, Beijing city authorities on Friday issued new rules requiring weibo users to register their real names before posting online.
Analysts say the rare stand-off between Chinese citizens and the authorities could draw in Wang Yang, the Communist party head of Guangdong province who is tipped to win a place in the party's powerful Standing Committee next year.
Wang, 56, is known as a reformer but has had his focus on improving provincial living standards interrupted by a series of high-profile labour and land disputes.
"Wukan is in one of the most prosperous regions in the country, showing that prosperity is not by itself a solution to social unrest," Nicolas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch told AFP.
"If the idea is for the government to lead China into a period of greater prosperity it must also recognise that the more resources people have, the more they are ready to defend their rights."
Residents of Wukan told AFP the Communist leader of the village, whose whereabouts are unknown, ran a property development company.
On Wednesday, the local government announced that "a few" local officials were under investigation and said a controversial development deal that sparked the September riots had been suspended.
But authorities also vowed to "crack down" on the instigators of the September violence, naming several villagers – one of whom, Lin Zulian, insisted he had only been protecting the property rights of fellow villagers.
"What they say is lies. I am only seeking to protect the interests of the people of this village," he told AFP. "I'm not afraid, I have done nothing wrong, they are saying that I am a criminal for representing the interests of the village."
See also:
 |