Posted on 03/16/2007 5:13:35 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
1 Killed, 60 Injured in China Protest
By AUDRA ANG 03.13.07, 7:53 AM ET
A student was killed and at least 60 people were injured in central China when villagers armed with bricks and rocks clashed with baton-wielding police over rising bus fares, witnesses and news reports said Tuesday.
Residents in Zhushan, a village in Hunan province, began gathering around a government building Friday to protest the new price of public bus tickets, said Jiang Zhaoyuan, who saw the demonstration that lasted through the weekend. The price had doubled over the Chinese New Year holiday in February.
The crowd swelled to about 20,000 by Monday and the protest turned violent when local authorities dispatched police, who started attacking people, said Zhang Zilin, a local human rights activist who rushed to the scene after a resident called him.
It was the latest in series of bloody confrontations between authorities and citizens, most over corruption, the widening gap between rich and poor, and official attempts to seize land.
On Tuesday, road blocks were set up to seal the area and police put up notices asking people who participated in the demonstration to turn themselves in, Zhang said. Other villagers said local officials were visiting homes and telling people to keep calm and stay off the streets, which were being patrolled by scores of paramilitary police.
During the peak of the violence on Monday, protesters were "very, very angry and were shouting 'Beat the government dogs to death,'" Zhang, 22, said in a phone interview. They were throwing rocks and bricks at the officers and set fire to five police cars, he said.
At least 1,500 paramilitary police and riot police wearing helmets and carrying batons yelled back "Beat them to death," Zhang said.
"They beat everyone including old people, children, women and people who were just passing by," he said. At least 60 people were injured, Zhang said.
He said the clash lasted about five hours, starting midday, and villagers surrounded the government offices until 8 p.m. before dispersing.
Jiang, the farmer, said he saw a young man pummeled by three or four policemen with batons. "It was more than three hours before he could stand," Jiang said.
A man who answered the telephone at the police station at Yongzhou, which oversees Zhushan village, first said he was "unclear" about the situation and then dismissed it as "rumors." Telephones were not answered at government offices in Yongzhou.
Zhang said he did not have any details about the student who died, but Hong Kong's South China Morning Post (other-otc: SCHPY.PK - news - people ) newspaper said the boy was hospitalized on Sunday and died Monday.
Qing Zhao, a teacher at a local school, said four students were injured in the protest and he was told one of the boys later died.
"Who knows what will happen next?" Qing said. "People are scared from seeing so many policemen and soldiers."
Jiang said the bus fare were originally 77 cents and it rose up to $1.90 over the Lunar New Year. On Tuesday, government officials said they would bring it down to 65 cents.
The incident came as China's legislature was convening for its annual meeting. The ruling Communist Party has in recent years focused its efforts to develop the poverty-stricken countryside and improve the lives of its 800 million rural residents.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao mentioned rural education and health care subsidies in his opening speech last week, while the party has set aside billions of dollars in new farm subsidies
Must be a pitched battle.
Ping!
Sounds like they have more cajones than our citizens do, faced with the same circumstances.......
They need more public transportation subsidies. Then it'll be like PA, with no traffic congestion, pristine air and lots of union thugs doing nothing but striking.
Sounds like Communists eating their own. No thoughts of freedom to be found in this article, move along please.
Those zany Chinese villagers may be on to something there. Maybe if a few of our government buildings were surrounded (by people other than bloated, cowardice loving Republocrats) things would change for the better.
The problem with having over a billion people is when most of them get angry enough to turn on you. "Power to the people" can bring down Communism in this case...quite an irony.
Sounds like more freedom minded citizens than Americans.
In America, the gov't just puts up toll booths on publicly funded roads and extracts whatever they want from us without a whimper. If you don't pay, we have the luxury of individual fines, followed by personal, clean sheriff's visit.
So the chinese govt version of the response is a little more mass produced, less personal....the citizens at least still riot over the concept, not just bend over.
It doesn't look like privatization has much of a happy future in China.
Its because of the bourgeoisification of Western society. When people accumulate enough capital, they become exceedingly risk averse and will accept whatever dictates the government issues meekly. It is an irony that people in communist dictatorship will take to the streets to demonstrate and clash with armed police for a 1.13 RMB increase in bus fare (about 15 cents) while American citizens will at best send letters (strongly worded I'm sure) to their senator to protest thousands of dollars in extra taxes.
It's a matter of comfort breeding complacency. What constitutes as "acceptable" political behavior in the United States is essentially so limp wristed and feeble now as to be pointless. Once the government loses it's fear of the citizenry, it's game over.
"Once the government loses it's fear of the citizenry, it's game over."
So true. Well, RMB is "the people's money." Maybe the people actually believe the name, as opposed to here, where we don't even have control over whether they hide our mottoes.
Unless the private company bankrolls huge number of 'Pinkerton Brigade.':-)
Is that correct? A $1.90 municipal bus fare? That would be more like I would expect in Tokyo than in "Zhushan, a village in Hunan province".
It sounds more like a cab fare.:-)
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