Villagers in China’s southeastern Jiangxi Province, upset over police brutality, relocation and corrupt local officials, have staged a large-scale, violent protest.
Thousands of enraged citizens armed with bricks and stones, smashed town hall windows and overturned police cars in response to police beating two women petitioners into a coma. The women were part of a group protesting forced relocation.
Mr. Yu, a local resident, told The Epoch Times that about 10,000 people witnessed the police beating the protesters. The residents picked up bricks from a nearby construction site and threw them at the town hall. The windows were broken and authorities mobilized 300 armed police. Residents then flipped the police cars over and smashed 18 of them.
Earlier in the day, residents from Dongxia Village, Gangkou Town, decided to go to Beijing to file a complaint against the local government forcing them to relocate. Local police mobilized 30 police cars to stop the villagers who were on their way to Beijing, and brought them back to the town hall.
Yu said, “The county party chief and the police bureau called the provincial leader and had over 100 policemen arrest us at the border of Gangkou Town in an attempt to stop us from going to Beijing. The county secretary promised that he would properly handle the case as long as we did not go to Beijing.”
