Man died on Wednesday during clashes to protect his land from official seizure. Violence continues next day.

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – More than a thousand villagers clashed with police in Liling, a village in the central Chinese province of Hunan, because of a land dispute. After fighting broke out on Tuesday, a 58-year-old man, Zhong Peihua, died. The confrontation continued the next day, Radio Free Asia reported.

The incident occurred when villagers tried to stop construction workers from building on land they say they hadn't been properly compensated for.

According to some sources, the villagers clashed with police (others claim the police agents were actually private security guards), resulting in one dead and six injured.  

Afterwards more than 1,000 people carried the dead man's body to the city government building to protest, but were prevented from entering the premises by police.

A two-minute video footage sent to the Associated Press shows the body of a middle-aged man in a red shirt lying on a door ripped from its hinges. Around him villagers can be seen weeping and protesting as police looks on without intervening.

Protests by farmers over land seized without adequate compensations are very frequent in rural China.

Local government officials, who are often more interested in helping construction companies than their fellow villagers, have been taking advantage of Chinese law which stipulates that farmland is held collectively by the village and is only granted to farmers for cultivation.

Given such circumstances it is not surprising that all sorts of abuse and graft have become commonplace.

Last year alone about 87,000 economically motivated incidents were reported.

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