[Unattributed report: "A Few Thousand People Lay Siege to City Government Building and 20 Wounded in Hunan's Liling After Man Beaten to Death in Land Requisition"]

Our centre has learned that an extraordinary riot was triggered yesterday evening [ 5 May] in Hunan's Liling City after a villager was beaten to death by the security guards of an engineering company with close connections to the government. A few thousand city residents laid siege to the city government building and had a bloody clash with a few hundred Armed Police and public security officers. At least 20 city residents were wounded and two police vehicles smashed up in the clash. At present the authorities have urgently moved more than 1,000 Armed Police officers to Liling from other places to be on the alert. An entrance guard of the city government confirmed to us that a few thousand people laid siege to the city government building.

Our centre has learned that the authorities were making a forced requisition of 39 mu of vegetable plots from the Mayuan group at Liling City's Hexi Village for the construction of a gymnasium in the city by offering a price of 82,200 yuan per mu. However, the villagers thought the reasonable land requisition price should be 300,000 yuan per mu because around 300 people would lose their livelihood after the vegetable plots were requisitioned. With no agreement reached, yesterday morning more than 30 security guards of Dafa, a company with close connections to the government, filled up the vegetable plots with earth by force in the presence of more than 100 public security and Armed Police officers on the scene. They clashed with the villagers and a Hexi Village resident named Zhong Peihua was beaten to death and six others seriously wounded in the clash. The public security and Armed Police officers did not stop the security guards' violent conduct. Yesterday afternoon a few thousand city residents started to lay siege to the Liling City Government building. By seven o'clock or more on the evening, the angry masses kept on charging a cordon formed by a few hundred public security and Armed Police officers, wanting to storm into the city government building. Many city residents hurled rocks at the public security and Armed Police officers and two police vehicles were smashed up. By around eight o'clock on the evening, a large number of Armed Police officers rushed to the scene for reinforcement. Dispersing the crowd by force, the public security and Armed Police officers clashed with the demonstrating masses. At least 20 people were wounded from beatings. An entrance guard of the city government today acknowledged that a few thousand people yesterday attempted to storm into the city government building but were stopped by public security and Armed Police officers and no entrance guards were wounded. Up to 1,000 mobile troops of the Armed Police have today arrived in Liling to prevent an extraordinary riot.

In Jiangxi's Pingxiang City on 30 March, the death of an old man killed as a result of a demolition and relocation [dispute] triggered a protest by a few thousand people marching with his dead body and smashing up five police vehicles. Most of the people who participated in the demonstrations in Jiangxi and Liling had no direct interests in the demolitions and relocations. Most of them participated in the demonstrations and riots for the sake of venting various discontent with the government. This situation already is very similar to that of the popular demonstrations of 1989 and popular discontent would erupt at the presence of a fuse.

Source: Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, Hong Kong, in Chinese 6 May 09