Protesters said that all they did was to refuse to leave their land and that the police moved in and arrested 12 demonstrators, ordering everybody else to leave the area.
Residents claim that the land was not seized for public use but for the purpose of real estate speculation.
Information about the incident remains unclear however. Official sources say no one died, but a posting on the popular Tianya blog said that police used electric batons and tear gas, causing the death of one person, and injuring six others. As many as 50 villagers were taken into custody.
In China, ordinary citizens have almost no recourse against abuses by the authorities, who are not shy about expropriating private property, including private homes, in order to sell them cheap to industrial or residential developers.
In many cases, residents resort to physical force against seizures and forced demolitions because the authorities refuse to hear their complaints. Police are often used in evictions, and this in turn leads to violent clashes.
Last week, one person was killed and many injured in clashes between police and farmers in Jiangus. The latter were protesting their forced eviction and the loss of their farmland.
Official figures indicate that in 2008 alone there were 87,000 incidents of this kind.