Protesting villagers beaten, 38 injured

HGelong Village, Dawei Township, E’meishan City. Sichuan Province: Local government seized land for excavating a mine, but only arranged for 10 of the 28 village households to be relocated. This angered the villagers and they’ve been protesting for 19 months without success. On Thursday, Jan. 8, 2015, villagers again demonstrated.

A villager said, “This afternoon at approximately 2 p.m., we all went to make a bonfire, waiting for a government representative to meet with us to resolve the problem. After a while the government representative came, a Communist Party secretary surnamed Yu. He got out of his car and came toward us, speaking to the crowd. The villagers were peacefully listening to the Party secretary talk.”

Another villager said, “Before we got to the villagers’ main concerns, a cry of “Help!” came from the back. We turned our heads and more than 50 riot police were wading into the crowd lashing out at people with truncheons and steel pipes. The villagers here were all senior citizens, women, and children, all the young men are off in the city working as migrant laborers. Many of the elderly were beaten unconscious, some with broken feet and legs, blood flowing everywhere.”

http://news.boxun.com/news/gb/china/2015/01/201501120706.shtml