Chinese police fired tear gas and rubber bullets in a massive dawn raid Tuesday in Wukan village in the southern province of Guangdong to suppress a new spate of protests.
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Back in June, local Communist Party secretary Lin Zuluan was taken away by police and later shown “confessing” to engaging in bribery while in office. The activists had been pressing for the release of a village leader, Lin Zuluan, who was sentenced last week to three years in prison on corruption charges.
Residents of Wukan asserted that Lin’s arrest was political and that they wouldn’t remain silent.
Villagers, including old people, pelted police with bricks as they advanced with shields, batons and helmets, with clouds of tear gas wafting down the street, video footage seen by Reuters showed.
A witness in Wukan told CNN he had seen “riot police attacking villagers” and that “multiple people were injured”. He had been planning to lead villagers in demonstrations before his arrest. “Now I can hear on the loudspeakers they’re urging suspects they name to turn themselves in”.
He said those people arrested so far had assumed prominent roles in the protests or had been vocal on social media.
With the people forcing officials to compromise, the incident was regarded in many circles as an example of “grassroots democracy” in China, or the “Wukan experience”. This is infringement not only human right but also right of property of the whole village and they are treated unfairly, ‘ said lawmaker Kwok Ka-ki.
“The government wants to use this crackdown to set an example and warn other neighbouring villages not to stage protests”, Patrick Poon, Amnesty International’s Hong Kong-based China researcher, told Reuters.
Wukan first grabbed global headlines five years ago when mass protests over land grabs by corrupt local officials forced Beijing to backdown and grant free elections in the village.
The raids and arrests came less than a week after a democratically elected local leader, Lin Zulian, was jailed by authorities on corruption charges.
A notice of the 100,000 RMB (£11,000) rewards, and pictures of the five, were broadcast on TV in the city of Lufeng. Directly-elected by the villagers of Wukan, the 72-year-old leader aired his grievances about the village’s dire situation on land, noting that the “inaction of local governments over the past five years” has continued to cause problems.
In an attempt to stem months of protests, the government allowed them to hold elections for a new village chief, which were won by Lin Zuluan.
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“They did not tell us why we can not go in, or when this will end, so we simply turned back”, one driver told CNN after she was blocked from reentering the village by police.
