On Feb. 24, 2009, a bloody clash broke out between police and villagers protesting the authorities’ land expropriation in Liulan village near Guiping City of China’s southwestern Guangxi Province. Nine villagers were hospitalized due to severe injury, over 40 others were injured and over 100 were arrested.
Conflicts between the villagers and the authorities were triggered by the forced expropriation of about 2 square km (0.8 square mile) of farm land which the villagers rejected due to poor compensation. Vexed local government officials sent over 1,000 policemen to arrest 28 villagers at around 3 a.m. on Feb. 24. Later the same day over 1,000 villagers including 600 to 700 primary school students decided to march to protest the arrests and demand the police to release the villagers.
On their way to the police office, the villagers were attacked by some 1,000 armed policemen who assaulted the villagers with batons, rocks and dogs.
Villager Liang told the reporter that one villager’s ribs were broken and his lungs were hurt. “They arrested old people and women, and even a young student,” Liang said.
On Feb. 26, police went back to the village to make more arrests, but young villagers had all escaped from the village, leaving only the elderly and children behind. The children refused to go back to school before their parents are released safely.
An Epoch Times reporter called the emergency operation center of Guiping municipal government, but an official said he had not heard about the incident.
Read original article in Chinese.
