{"id":26966,"date":"2012-04-24T13:11:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-24T13:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=26966 "},"modified":"2012-04-24T13:11:00","modified_gmt":"2012-04-24T13:11:00","slug":"26966-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=26966","title":{"rendered":"Authorities Punish Party Members and Village Officials Following Wukan Protests"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">BEIJING &#8211; &nbsp;Chinese authorities have punished 20 officials and former village leaders after the community in southern China engaged in mass protests over land disputes that drove out local officials.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">The official Xinhua News Agency said late Monday that the former Communist Party chief of Wukan village in Guangdong province and the former head of the village committee were expelled from the ruling party and ordered to return nearly $45,000 in what it described as illegal gains.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Six other former village officials and a dozen higher-level officials were also punished, Xinhua said, but did not provide details.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Protests in Wukan last year flared into violence with villagers smashing a police station and cars. After key activists were detained in December, villagers drove out officials and barricaded themselves in for 10 days, holding boisterous rallies.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">The protests ended after provincial officials intervened and ceded to some demands.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Xinhua said authorities found that the village&#8217;s former officials had been involved in illegal transfers of land use rights, embezzling property that was collectively owned, accepting bribes and rigging village elections.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">In March, two of the protest leaders were elected to run the village in a much-watched election that reformers hoped would promote democracy as a way to settle many of the myriad disputes besetting China.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Many experts, however, said it&#8217;s far too soon to say if political leaders will summon the will to replicate Wukan&#8217;s experience elsewhere.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><span style=\"color: #2d2d2d; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: -webkit-left; font-size: 12pt; background-color: #ffffff; \"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Read&nbsp;<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/thelede.blogs.nytimes.com\/2011\/12\/05\/journalists-should-be-government-mouthpieces-chinas-state-tv-president-says\/?ref=china#h[]\" style=\"color: #034af3; text-decoration: none; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; \"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/world\/2012\/04\/23\/china-punishes-20-officals-after-village-protests\/\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; color: #034af3; \"><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; \"><strong>original article<\/strong><\/span><\/a><span style=\"color: #2d2d2d; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; \">.<\/span><span style=\"color: #2d2d2d; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; \">&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<br \/><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;Twenty leaders and former officials will also be forced to return almost $45,000 in illegal appropriations from villagers, according to the Xinhua News Agency. &amp;nbsp;Last year the tiny fishing village in Guangdong province erupted in protests over corruption by local party leaders.&lt;\/div&gt;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}