China snuffs protests in village that got a whiff of freedom

Five years ago, the fishing village of Wukan symbolized the power of grassroots movement in communist China when protests over land grabs ended successfully with a compromise and the ability to elect its own local officials. Yet those dreams shattered as images emerged Tuesday of riot police violently clashing with villagers after authorities imprisoned their former village leader on corruption charges last week.

Before dawn, police broke into the homes of protest leaders and arrested 13 people for allegedly inciting a mob and spreading rumors, according to an official statement. Villagers staged nearly 80 days of rallies after authorities detained Lin Zuluan, their elected village leader. Lin, a former protest leader, had been planning new protests over more land grabs when he was arrested in June.

On Thursday, authorities sentenced Lin to three years in jail and fined him about $60,000 for taking bribes on construction projects. Villagers believe he was wrongly charged and made his televised confession under duress. Lin’s lawyer said he made the confession to protect his family.

Chinese media censors reporting on “mass incidents,” but residents filmed videos and snapped photos on their cellphones and circulated them online or sent them to Hong Kong news stations. One unverified video showed police in riot gear shooting tear gas and rubber bullets as villagers waved Chinese flags and chucked bricks. The police backed down and started retreating.

Photos obtained by Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post showed villagers injured by rubber bullets with blood covering their heads and hands. Another video from inside a villager’s house showed several police officers breaking in the front door at 4 a.m. before pinning down and arresting the resident. Villagers told the Post the authorities took control of the village and set up ID checks around the area.

The public security bureau in Lufeng, where Wukan is located, stated it arrested the protest leaders because they “continued to fabricate rumors and deploy measures such as threats, insults, force, and bribes to instigate, to plan, and to launch illegal mass gatherings.” It also noted on the Twitter-like social media site Weibo that it was investigating the “doctored images” of the “so-called Wukan incident.”

The successful 2011 Wukan protests inspired other villages in China to express their grievances through protests. Yet the recent imprisonment of Lin and the government crackdown of the village revealed the Chinese government isn’t ready to relax control even at a local level.

“This has become utterly lawless,” one villager told the Post. “Using tear gas and rubber bullets against unarmed civilians? [Does] the government of China serve the people or itself?”