The provincial government detained a group of farmers for two months who had wanted to travel to Beijing to ask for justice after they were evicted from their lands. Two students employed to convince them to write self-critical statements.

Chengdu (AsiaNews/Agencies) –Sichuan provincial government has taken the land of a group of farmers without paying out compensation and in order to stop them bringing their protest to the central government, detained the group, torturing them over a period of two months.   Lei Mingfen whose has been helping the 30 farmers from Taiping village in their campaign for justice has confirmed the reports.   

According to Lei, the group was detained September 26 last: “we were on our way to Beijing to protest about the land deal when we were rounded up by local officials and taken to a military base on Chengdu's Phoenix Mountain”. “We were released on December 1 after signing documents saying we would not petition Beijing again, but we soon realised that we were cheated as officials have failed to solve our problems”.

Liu Yongqiong, 39, was among those arrested: “I tried to commit suicide because they didn't allow me to sleep or eat in order to force me to write self-criticism letters.  I also saw other people were being beaten after refusing to write anything”.

Two students confirmed they were hired to monitor the petitioners at the base and persuade them to stop complaining: “It's just a temporary job, but I can't tell you the details.  We signed a disciplinary document with our government to keep it a secret”.  

 The Taiping petitioners said they had lost more than 120 hectares of farmland, the last tract shared by 4,000 villagers, to a local government property development in 2005. The authorities also occupied villagers' homes. Lei explains that “the authorities promised to pay each adult 20,000 Yuan [circa 2 thousand euro – ed]: now they say they had paid 60,000 Yuan to buy social insurance for each of us. So we now owe them 40,000 Yuan even though we lost everything”.

 

• china
• farmers
• protest
• arrest
• torture
• evictions
• Taiping
• Beijing