From Yulun Jiandu, translated by CDT:

At Xiayang Village of Haicang District in Xiamen City, Fujian Province, more than 200 mu of the village’s “collective enterprise construction land” was seized for four times by the local government, triggering mass protests, petitions to city, province and Beijing. Now villagers is suing the Xiamen City government, which oversees the land grabbing Haicang Investment Zone Administration Committee (the Committee).

Under Committee Director Liu Chengye, who was also Xiamen vice mayor, the Committee made two resolutions in August 2000 and July 2001 to seize the village’s 200 mu land. Mass petitions by the villagers forced the Committee to take back its resolutions.

Liu’s successor Weng Yunlei attempted to do the same with the land. Another round of protests and a letter to then Xiamen acting mayor brought a village wide voting, with 1,356 votes against the land seizure and 914 in favor. Again, the Committee had to give the land back. [Full Text in Chinese]

But in the year end of 2003, the Committee again acted against the strong opposition of villagers and forcefully seized the land. Two years of petitions came to no result and the villagers had no choice but to send Xiamen government into the court. With no affordable lawyers to represent them, the villagers defended themselves in the trial in early June.

Brandish a local newspaper in the trial, a villager criticized the district governor of lying to the reporters saying that most of the villagers agreed with the land seizure. He also said that district government persuaded the village committee to spend tens of thousands of yuan to buy villager representatives and party members free trips to Guangdong, Nanjing, Shanghai and Hangzhou.

Also in the village, there were mass petitions in early 2000 about requesting the government to inspect the village account book for land sales in 1992 and 1993, during which period a few thousands mu of land were taken but the villagers didn’t know how many or for how much money. They only saw the sudden wealth of village cadres with their new multi-story houses, villas, cars and even factories.

An audit revealed 48 million yuan of total land sales in the village, but the balance of the village account was less than 1,300 yuan. Villagers were upset about government inaction about the loss of village asset and their request to re-examine the case with participation of the villagers were unanswered.