2015-05-18
Police fire tear gas at protesters in Linshui county, Sichuan, May 17, 2015.
Photo courtesy of an RFA listener
Dozens of people were injured and detained in clashes with security forces after tens of thousands of local residents took to the streets to call for a new railway line to stop in their neighborhood, authorities and local residents in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan said on Monday.
“More than 30 officials and police and 38 of the crowd were injured,” a government statement said after mass demonstrations in Sichuan’s Linshui county over the weekend that saw a huge security presence deployed to the area, sparking an angry reaction from previously peaceful protesters, eyewitnesses told RFA.
The statement, posted on the Linshui county government’s official website, blamed the violence on a “small group” of more than 100 protesters, adding that more than 40 people were detained on Saturday, and more than 20 on Sunday.
But it denied unconfirmed reports of deaths in the violence, adding: “not one person died.”
Tens of thousands of Linshui residents crowded onto the streets of the county town on Saturday morning, demanding that a planned new railway line linking Dazhou city to Chongqing pass through their county, rather than through the neighboring city of Guangan.
The protests continued on Sunday, as riot police and paramilitary police were drafted in to disperse the crowd, local residents said.
“The army came here [on Sunday],” a Linshui resident told RFA on Monday. “They even had armored vehicles, and there were ranks and ranks of them on guard, with their faces hidden, detaining people.”
“To tell you the truth, we are pretty angry, because they were so brutal when they beat people up. They beat them around the head, so that they were bleeding.”
“We have a lot of photos and video here, but we can’t post them online,” she said.
Paramilitary police used
Another resident, who also asked to remain anonymous, said they had also seen armed paramilitary police troops alongside riot police.
“They had armored cars there; I saw them yesterday,” the resident said.
Meanwhile, a Linshui resident surnamed Hu said an estimated 200 people were detained on Saturday night alone, giving numbers far higher than those provided by the government statement.
