A rights lawyer helping villagers in southern China resolve a tense land dispute with the local government has been formally arrested, his attorney said yesterday.
Gao Zhisheng told reporters the law firm received notice this week from police that Guo Feixiong had been arrested on charges of "gathering crowds to disturb social order."
"All we know is that he's been formally arrested. ... We don't know when the trial will take place," said Gao, head of the Beijing-based Zhisheng Legal Office and Guo's employer.
PHOTO: AP
Guo "disappeared" last month after he educated farmers at Taishi village in Guangdong Province in their ongoing battle to legally remove village head Chen Jinsheng, whom locals accuse of corrupt land practices.
Chen had allegedly sold villagers' land without their consent and pocketed some of the money.
Villagers told reporters yesterday numerous plainclothes police and uniformed guards have been posted in the village to monitor the activities of the villagers around the clock.
"They are guarding entrances to our village. They've also gone from door to door warning us not to cause trouble," said one woman who declined to be identified for fear of retribution. "People are afraid to speak to reporters."
Several previously outspoken villagers' mobile numbers have been switched off. Foreign reporters who tried to go to the village have been harassed.
Academics and lawyers around China view the case as a test of the central government's determination to fully implement laws on village democracy, something they had been promoting.
The case could have significant ramifications, especially given it involves China's richest province, as it could affect the widespread land redevelopment -- which often come with unfair seizure of land from the farmers -- going on in major cities.
Authorities may view any victory by the farmers to regain possession of the land Chen sold as having a negative impact, such as scaring away buyers and developers.
For weeks, civil affairs officials from the provincial capital Guangzhou's Panyu district refused to accept a petition to remove Chen and repeatedly sent police to detain villagers and break up peaceful protests.
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
RSS