As many as 60 people were wounded in a clash between police and villagers after an outsider intruded on a traditional spiritual rite in southern China, news reports and the government said yesterday. The government said 17 villagers were arrested.
The violence erupted July 4 in Lanyang, a village on the tropical island of Hainan that is home to the Li ethnic minority group, the reports said.
Villagers barred outsiders during an ancestor-worship ceremony and seized the car of a businessman from China's mainland who forced his way in, according to Beijing and Hong Kong news reports and the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.
The information center said villagers demanded that the businessman pay for damage done by his forced entry.
Violence erupted when police raided the village to retrieve the car, the reports said. Chinese news reports said 20 officers were injured but made no mention of villagers, while the Information Center put the number of injured at up to 60 police and local residents.
Police raided the village for a second time on Wednesday under orders from China's police minister to deal severely with the incident, the news reports said.
Seventeen people were arrested on charges of extortion and obstructing police, according to a statement yesterday on the government Web site of the nearby city of Danzhou, which administers Lanyang.
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