Dharamsala, July 21 – Thousands of angry peasants clashed with the police in Gaoxin District, Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province between July 14 and 18, reported the Epoch Times. The angry villagers were protesting land grabs by the Chinese government. The local Chinese media, however, remained mute over the incident. Internet blog postings by eyewitnesses were quickly deleted by the regime. Watch video here
Several thousand villagers took over the government building coming face to face with riot police. Sources said the crowd was as many as thirty thousand at one point.
The standoff between police and villagers began as thousands of villagers arrived at the local government headquarters to express their grievances over the local government’s illegal takeover of their farmland. Tens of thousands of mu (1 mu = 0.16 acre) had been illegally expropriated during the past seven years without fair compensation to the villagers, the report by Epoch Times said.
“When the villagers found officials unresponsive, they became angry and took over the government building, breaking some equipment and bringing government business to a halt as officials fled,” reported Epoch Times
According to local residents, the riot police beat up the several hundred villagers who then retaliated with bricks and beer bottles on July 16. Dozens of villagers were injured and hospitalized, and several dozen arrested.
On July 17, local residents and relatives of those arrested, proceeded to blockade National Highway 312 in Gaoxin district to continue their protest.
Many more local residents rushed to the blocked highway. According to local residents, villagers from surrounding communities also came to support the protest.
Witnesses told Epoch Times that the government in 2003 started to forcefully take away farming land under the guise of constructing new high-tech industrial parks promising them compensations. However, the farmers never received the compensation promised by the government. Recently the local government started to auction off the land at prices ten or more times the purchase price.
