Villagers Detained in Land Clash/ENG

Entire Chinese village raises complaint to the government over a land grab.

Authorities in the southeastern province of Fujian detained about half a dozen people following demonstrations at an ethnic minority Muslim village over a government land grab inspired by last year's protests in the Guangdong rebel village of Wukan.

"That's right, they were probably detained on Thursday afternoon," said a resident of Fujian's Xibian Hui Minority Village, near Chendai township. "The whole village went  to the township government to complain."

She said the majority of Xibian villagers were Hui minority Muslims. "Only reporters from Hong Kong dare to report this," she added. "Journalists here don't dare to report it."

Protests have continued in the village since Dec. 27, when villagers took to the streets carrying banners which read, "We must learn from Wukan," and "We strongly demand our land back."

In a case they say is similar to land grabs in Wukan, where protesters won major concessions from officials after several days of pitched battles with riot police, Xibian villagers accuse local officials of secretly appropriating more than 900 mu (60 hectares) of local land.

The villagers were detained by police after around several hundred villagers marched to the government office building on Thursday, local residents said.

"About 500 to 600 people went on the march yesterday," said a villager surnamed Ding. "There were hundreds of police there, and they snatched away people's flags and banners and threw them away like rubbish."

"There are still a few people locked up," he said. "There was one guy who tried to go to the district-level parliament to complain, but they wouldn't let him in, and they locked him up too."

Photos
Photos of the protest posted online showed an elderly villager in a wheelchair waving  a flag, and heading towards the ranks of assembled policemen. They also showed a banner which read, "We welcome China's central government leaders and the overseas media to come and investigate the truth."

An official who answered the phone at the Xibian village committee office denied that any demonstration had taken place.

"No, there wasn't," the official said. "I don't know [what the situation is]."

According to online posts, protests began in September amid allegations that the relatives of the village ruling Communist Party secretary had appropriated hundreds of millions of yuan in village funds from the sale of local farmland.

"In other villages they divide up the proceeds [of land sales] among each individual," said another Xibian resident. "We got nothing here in our village. I don't understand it."

An employee who answered the phone at the Chendai police station declined to comment on the protests.

"I don't really know," the employee said.

Clashes between farming communities and police are becoming more and more widespread  as local residents increasingly challenge lucrative property deals involving communal land by local officials.

Last week, activists in the southwestern province of Sichuan said they were spurred on by the concessions won by Wukan villagers amid strikes at a major state-owned steel works in Chengdu.

Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin service and by Lin Jing for the Cantonese service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.