Thousands of villagers protesting against the building of a dam in China's southwestern province of Sichuan detained the region's most senior government official for several hours Friday, reports said.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators surrounded and detained the secretary of the province's Communist Party of China, Zhang Xuezhong, on Friday as he visited the scene of the protests in Hanyuan county, Taiwan and Hong Kong media reported yesterday.
Two police officers were also killed during the demonstrations, Taiwan's China Times reported citing information published on the Internet that it said was confirmed by anonymous sources in Beijing.
An extra 6,000 soldiers from the People's Armed Police have been sent to the area, the paper said.
The incidents were reported in Taiwan but not, however, in China's state-run media.
An official at the party's provincial headquarters in Chengdu could not confirm the reports but said Zhang had travelled to Hanyuan on Friday.
Around 100,000 people are to be relocated to make way for the Pubugou dam in Sichuan's Hanyuan county, and many are unhappy at the compensation payments offered. Protests against the dam started late last month.
Tempers boiled over on Thursday and Friday last week when villagers said at least one person was killed and scores were injured as tens of thousands of people clashed with armed police.
As many as 10,000 soldiers had been deployed to areas near the hydroelectric dam on Friday, the Hong Kong Apple Daily said. It quoted residents as saying this was the first time that soldiers had been mobilised.
Officials in Sichuan province were not available to comment.
The ruling Communist Party is keen to curb dissent and preserve social stability, but a spate of recent protests and their scale illustrate the extent of grievances in rural China, fuelled by corruption and a growing gap between rich and poor.
The Apple Daily said between 50,000 and 60,000 protesters staged another huge protest on Wednesday, resulting in clashes that left two dead and two injured.
While police did not open fire, they beat back the crowds with batons.
At least seven people were killed and 42 injured in central Henan province after a car accident involving an ethnic Han Chinese and a member of the Hui Muslim minority sparked rioting late last month.
Despite strict government controls, more than 3 million people staged about 58,000 protests across China last year -- a 15 percent jump from the previous year -- according to Outlook magazine, a mouthpiece of the Communist Party.
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
RSS