Police in southwestern China assaulted and detained five villagers who took part in a demonstration by more than 2,000 farmers protesting inadequate land compensation, a human rights group said yesterday.
The protesters took to the streets of Zigong, a city in Sichuan Province, on April 20 to ask the new mayor for more money for the land they gave up, the New York-based Human Rights in China (HRIC) said in a news release.
Liu Zhengyou, Mao Xiulan, Chen Shoulin, Chen Xiaoling and Deng Shufen were among more than 100 peasants who staged a protest in the city square, carrying banners and distributing flyers detailing their complaints, HRIC said.
More than 700 police were dispatched to the scene, the group said, and began confiscating the materials and detaining the representatives. The five were forced into police vans and were injured in the process, HRIC said.
Liu and Mao were treated at a hospital for injuries to the abdomen, neck, feet and head, it said. The injuries of the other three were not specified.
A Zigong government official confirmed Wednesday that the demonstration took place, but denied that anyone was assaulted or detained.
"Their farmland was taken away and they were given low compensation," said the official who would give only his family name, Chen. "The only thing the government can do is console the farmers and step up our propaganda work. We will not increase our compensation."
Telephones at the police station rang unanswered.
Violent clashes between farmers and local authorities are becoming more common as disputes over land compensation and rising tax burdens trigger social unrest.
While the central government has increased efforts to raise incomes in the country's poverty-stricken countryside, corruption and lack of land rights make it difficult for the 800 million to become more prosperous.
Farmers in Zigong have been engaged in a dispute with the local government since 1993, when authorities took over more than 940 hectares of fertile farmland to establish a high-tech zone, HRIC said.
Villagers were given a resettlement fee of 8,000 yuan (US$968) and a monthly allowance of up to 90 yuan (US$11) -- amounts they say are inadequate payment for what they gave up, the group said.
More than 80 demonstrators have been detained since the dispute started and another 20 have been injured in clashes with authorities, it said.
At the beginning of the year, local officials who had been suppressing the protests were promoted or transferred out of the city and the farmers arranged for the April 20 rally in hopes of bringing their plight to the attention of the city's new mayor, Wang Hailin, HRIC said.
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