Villagers on their knees in protest
Print Edition
AN official investigation has begun after villagers kneeled in protest outside a government building in Jining City in east China’s Shandong Province claiming their village committee was corrupt.
Photographs of around 200 people from Xigu Village in Zoucheng City, administered by Jining, appeared online with captions saying they wanted to tell the mayor their village officials had stolen money that should have been compensation for their relocation.
According to other captions, the mayor didn’t show up and police detained several protesters and made them promise to desist before they were released.
Zoucheng officials said villagers had started to lodge complaints about the financial status of the village in late December and the government of Beisu Town, which administers the village, had immediately launched an investigation.
However, that didn’t stop villagers from staging their protest in front of the Jining government building on Tuesday.
It had caused traffic jams and disturbed officials’ work, police said, adding that some were taken away after warnings had been given.
According to the Beijing News, Zoucheng’s publicity department said organizers had been placed under police custody.
Yesterday, news website thepaper.cn said officials from the Zoucheng municipal government had been sent to the village to investigate the allegations of corruption.
Villagers told the website that the Yanzhou Coal Mining Co Ltd had offered the village compensation when it began to exploit coal reserves in the village two years ago.
But they hadn’t received a penny while the village committee, with only five or six officials, had used the money to build a 5-story office building.
They said the company had built houses for villagers who had to move but they were of poor quality.
And in November, the committee told each family to pay 10,000 yuan (US$1,609) for tap water, solar energy and natural gas facilities.
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