China’s 10 Largest Incidents of Land Acquisition and Forced Demolition in 2011

• Author: China Law Digest compiled news from Civil Rights and &Livelihood Watch

1. The Wukan Incident

   Wukan is a village in Guangdong Province Lufeng City. In recent years, the village has sold land of roughly 3200 mu for a total profit of RMB 700 millions, but only a small amount of the profit was retained by the villagers. The villagers repeatedly filed petitions in an attempt to seek redresses for their grievances, but to no avail. In September, the villagers went to the Lufeng City Hall to file a petition; they blocked the roadways, besieged the local police station and elected delegates to a “Provisional Representative Council of the Villagers of Wukan”. In November, the villagers once again staged a large-scale demonstration in the City. In December, Xue Jinbo and 5 other villagers of Wukan were arrested, and Xue Jinbo died in police custody 3 days after his arrest. On 20 December, the Wukan incident reached a turning point when a working group was established at the provincial level in Guangdong to attempt to resolve the mounting troubles in Wukan. The authorities agreed to conduct a forensic autopsy of the death of Xue Jinbo, to release 3 of the arrested villagers, to acknowledge the Provisional Representative Council of the Villagers of Wukan and also to admit that the land transfer that had taken place in Wukan during the previous years had been tainted by corruption.

2. The Qian Yunhui Incident

   Prior to his death, Qian Yunhui was the Chief of Zhejiang Province Leqing City Zhaiqiao Village. For the past 5 years, he has been petitioning for redress for grievances caused by village land disputes. On 25 December, 2010, Qian left home after receiving a phone call and was then found to be run over by a construction vehicle. Because the official conclusion of the cause of the incident was generally disbelieved, a team consisted of well-known and widely respected citizens was unprecedentedlyapproved by the local government to conduct an onsite investigation into the circumstances surrounding Qian’s death.

3. The Wuzhou Bombing Incident

   On 26 May, 2011, the People’s Procuratorate and a number of other places in Jiangxi Province Wuzhou City were hit by a series of bombing attacks. 4 people were killed, including the bomb-maker, Linchuan District resident Qian Mingqi. Prior to the incident, Qian had reviewed on his Weibo that the motivation for the bombing attacks was that the local authorities had demolished his property and forced him to relocate, causing him losses of roughly RMB 2 millions, and also that the courts...