Police clashed violently with protesters in southern China as thousands of angry farmers rioted over the nation's controversial "one child" family planning policies, residents said yesterday.
Angry farmers besieged up to four township governments in the Guangxi autonomous region on Friday and Saturday, with police and protesters clashing in at least one demonstration, they said.
The demonstrations occurred after local governments this month dispatched "family planning work teams" to levy fines on families that were violating government population control policies, they said.
One woman in Shapi Township said up to 20,000 people had gathered and rioted there on Saturday, hurling rocks, breaking windows and torching public property.
"The farmers were really angry because the family planning team was going around to homes and making farmers pay fines if they had too many kids," she said. "If the farmers had no money they took things from them. Property with value they confiscated, things with no value they destroyed."
The teams confiscated everything from livestock to electronic goods and household items -- such as pots and pans and teapots -- according to the woman and other accounts on the Internet.
Photos on the Internet showed family planning work teams dressed in military fatigues and helmets carrying sledgehammers as they marched through villages.
On Friday, demonstrations erupted in neighboring Shuiming Township, with locals confronting up to 1,000 police armed with clubs and dogs, one witness said.
"It's hard to say how many people were there, [but] you could say there was a sea of people," a man said on condition of anonymity.
Hong Kong press reports said up to 50,000 farmers protested against the family planning policies in the four Guangxi townships in recent days. Residents and Internet postings indicated the situation was calm yesterday.
Authorities were trying to impose fines ranging from 6,000 yuan (US$780) to more than 60,000 yuan, depending on how many children the families had, residents and Hong Kong reports said.
Local and provincial government and police departments refused to comment on the unrest yesterday.
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