Villagers held for protesting against corruption
Police said the arrested villagers had repeatedly incited other villagers to make trouble in the name of fighting corruption by the Village Committee and protesting against property losses.
Shaoguan (AsiaNews/Scmp) - Wujiang district police in the northern Guangdong city of Shaoguan have arrested an unknown number of people for allegedly disrupting a Chaoyang village election in June and organising a sit-in at local government offices last month.
The Wujiang district police bureau, which oversees the village, declined yesterday to confirm the number of people detained. But some villagers accused of "violently disturbing the village election" were among the 27 people arrested on Tuesday, according to bureau sources quoted by the Guangzhou Daily.
Police said the arrested villagers had repeatedly incited other villagers to make trouble in the past few years in the name of fighting corruption by the village committee and protesting against property losses. According to the report, Peng Xianlong and some other villagers allegedly organised some residents to smash the ballot box and tear up the votes in the June election.
Police also said two of the chief instigators organised about 40 villagers last month to illegally occupy the committee's offices for more than a week. They removed the tyres of a government jeep, sealed off the finance office and set up a "rights defence group".
Police said the protest was over the loss of a village committee election in 2002. In May, the provincial party Discipline Inspection Commission said there had been a dispute in the village about compensation related to a government land requisition plan in 2002. Local authorities refused to discuss the issue yesterday, but a village source confirmed that more than 50 people had occupied the village committee's office from November 20 until December 1, when the sit-in was broken up by police.
"They accused the village heads of embezzling millions of yuan in collective funds," the source said. The source also said about 15 people were arrested in the village office and more than 10 were detained later. Some villagers had resisted police by using "bombs, hoes and iron rods". "I know there were 19 police officers injured in the clash" the source said.
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