In interviews with RFA's Cantonese Service, women farmers of Xiaoxishan village in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangxi describe being attacked on Sept. 2 by armed police sent in to suppress a protest after they blocked traffic in and out of a local industrial park over non-payment of ground rent:
A villager surnamed Huang:
"Several dozen armed police and they all set about beating up the women. Quite a few of us were injured. I have backache and my calves and thighs are black and blue. We blocked the factory vehicles so they couldn't drive away, because there is three years of ground rent which they haven't paid us.
It started when the government came calling on some of the younger people in the village for a 'chat,' and then detained them in the police station. All their cell phones were confiscated. They were trying to put pressure on us to release the vehicles."
A villager surnamed Sun:
"Eight [people] went to hospital. More than 10 [were injured].
The thing that makes me really angry is that first they used force to open the road [to the factory], and then...they came in and used force to beat people up. They used electric cattle prods and truncheons, using them against ordinary people.
When they were done beating people up, we wouldn't let the police leave. The political and legal affairs secretary...told us to let them go so they could go home. They said we should respect the leadership of the county government, and let them go.
I went to the village government offices today to find out what was going on, and they said we had no option but to give in."
Reported by Wen Yuqing for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
