Forced Land-taking in Nanyang, Henan Province Results in Beatings

作者:European Bulletin | 来源:64Tianwang

[April 7, 2012 Time: 16:50:27 | by European Bulletin | Source: 64Tianwang]

Original text at http://www.64tianwang.com/bencandy.php?fid-17-id-9616-page-1.htm

Beaten Peasants and Gang Members

Above: Scene of the Dispute     Right: Original Condition of the Fields and Gang Members Employed by the Township Government

The villagers of Miaowang hamlet of Shuanglong Village, Shuanglong Township, Xixia County,Nanyang City, Henan Province lies in a dry farming region which has little land for the 300 villagers who live in the hamlet. On February 17, 2012 county and township officials and businesspeople colluded, without and legal procedures and without reaching a compensation agreement with local people, and without the consent of most of the peasants, to forcibly take the land and begin a construction project.  The project, a large wholesale agricultural products market in what is apparently an effort to covertly do a commerical housing real estate project. Peasants surrounded the site and forced work to halt. The developpers, in coordination with the government, hired people to beat up the villagers who put up collective resistance to the attacks. As a result of this mass incident, several villagers were injured and had to be sent to the hospital.

For several days, the Shuanglong Township government ignored the strong resistance of the villages to studies of the geology of the site.  Finally on March 27, the government hired 40 outsiders and brought them to the worksite. Three pieces of excavation equipment and an ambulance which were driven to Diwan hamlet broke through the Diwan Villagers who were sitting around the field.  The outsiders,three or four men to a person, roughly wrestled down the villagers and dragged them out of the way.Some of these villagers were women in their sixties and seventies. One was breast-feeding her oneyear-old infant. Five of the villagers were knocked unconscious and were sent to the hospital in theambulance. The head of the township government, the head of the local State Land Office, Liu Baoshan, and other government workers scorned the kneeling villagers. This process went on for an hour.  Finally out of the desire of the villager to be conciliatory and for fear of violence the villagers gave way.

What especially disturbed the villagers was that when Mr. Liang, the head of the local police station,got to the scene he not only did not stop the beatings but warned and threatened the villagers.He said that"People who should be arrested for stirring up the masses to cause a disturbance will be arrested and those who should be imprisoned will be imprisoned."  The villagers said that the local police station should investigate and arrest those government officials and unknown people who caused the incident.The police responded very coldly, "Get out of the way. We will do an investigation. We will be the ones who will investigate the ones who should take responsibility. This has nothing to do with you!"

Ever since mid March, the villagers have several times requested that the police station take up the matter of the peasants who were beated and put in the hospital. However, each time Mr. Fan, the police chief would give them their last warning about taking the land, telling them to their face "Today is your last chance. If you don't sign today and resolve this issue, the government will have nothing to do with the matter." Under threat from the head of the police station and the leaders of the construction project,the villagers in the hospitals were forced to sign the agreement already prepared by the township government.

Today,the worst thing is that not only does local government continue over and over to ride roughshod over villagers,threatening them so they dare not tell the truth and constantly threatening them with revenge it has also uses all methods at its disposal to prevent media reports of these events and to decieve the [higher-level] government departments involved with these matters. They constant lie to higher officials and give them false reports. They are always scheming of evil deeds they will do to punish innocent villagers. The villagers hope that an investigation will be done into the employment of gang members to beat up villagers, that an investigation establish who organized this, and expose the leaders and behind-the-scenes leaders responsible for this incident.  Those responsible should be severely punished according to law.  This should be done so that the villagers of Diwan hamlet should be allowed to live in the just environment that they deserve.