Villager kills himself during forced demolition

Bamboo Village, Golden Bamboo Township, Small River District, Guiyang City, Guizhou Province: At a pig farm dyke, the government requisitioned village land. The compensation it offered was too low, so villagers refused to sign over the land. On Friday October 17, 2014, the local government sent more than police and demolition workers to tear down buildings on the land.

According to reports, police first sealed the river, roads, and mountain passes in preparation for forced demolition. The villagers stood on top of the buildings to block the demolition. They threatened to jump off the buildings if anyone tried to tear them down. When a demolisher said “I don’t believe you’ll jump,” one villager leaped from his second story and died on the spot. Two elderly people who jumped in the river after threatening to drown themselves were rescued and are now in the hospital.

On Saturday October 18, 2014, the family members and other villagers marched with the dead man’s portrait and held a banner reading: “Oppose violent demolition, return my relative’s life.” They demanded that the government return the corpse to his family. Hundreds of police responded and many people were beaten and hospitalized. At present it’s not known where the corpse is.

http://news.boxun.com/news/gb/china/2014/10/201410191749.shtml

(Copy editor’s note: In China people with grievances often threaten to kill themselves if they fail to get justice. A typical example would be laborers threatening to jump off a bridge because they weren’t paid what they were owed. Or, in a real incident, a taxi driver unjustly accused of driving an unlicensed cab cut off the tip of one of his fingers to convince officials he was telling the truth. Eventually, they conceded he was right.)