From Reuters, via sandiego.com
Saturday’s showdown at Shengyou, 220 km (140 miles) southwest of Beijing in Hebei province, was first reported in the Beijing News, rare coverage for one of a growing number of disputes over land rights in China, where the government places an overriding emphasis on the need for social stability.
Protests take place daily – Communist Party-backed magazine Outlook reported that there were around 58,000 across the country in 2003 – but news of them is often suppressed, with state-controlled media barred from freely reporting them.
Officials have claimed the disputed Shengyou land for a state-owned power plant, but the farmers, whose main livelihood is growing wheat and maize, say compensation is inadequate and have been struggling to hold on to it since 2002.
A group of 20 youths arrived in the night two months ago to try to force the farmers off the field, but they beat them back and captured one of the intruders – unemployed Beijinger Zhu Xiaorui who says he was paid 100 yuan ($12) to beat people up.
The second group of toughs arrived in the village over 200 kilometres southwest of Beijing in white buses and descended on the field shouting ‘charge’ and ‘kill’. One of them also died.
