{"id":46418,"date":"2015-04-06T22:04:00","date_gmt":"2015-04-06T22:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=46418 "},"modified":"2015-04-06T22:04:00","modified_gmt":"2015-04-06T22:04:00","slug":"46418-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=46418","title":{"rendered":"Dozens Held After Pollution Protests in China\\&#8217;s Inner Mongolia"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><\/div><div>2015-04-06<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mzzg.org\/UploadCenter\/ArticlePics\/2015\/14\/2015469b606d13-1dcf-43ec-ac14-3772a4d260d9.jpeg\" alt=\"2015469b606d13-1dcf-43ec-ac14-3772a4d260d9.jpeg (622&#215;467)\" \/><br \/><div><\/div><div>Armed riot police block highway in Inner Mongolia&#8217;s Naiman Banner, April 6, 2015.<\/div><div>&nbsp;Photo courtesy of SMHRIC.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Police in China&#8217;s northern Inner Mongolia region are holding dozens of people after firing tear-gas, water cannon and rubber bullets at crowds protesting chemical pollutoin over the weekend, ethnic Mongolian protesters said on Monday.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>The clashes came after the authorities mobilized some 2,000 riot police to end three weeks of protests over alleged pollution from a chemical plant near Daachin-tal (in Chinese, Daqintala) village in Naiman Banner, the Mongolian equivalent of a county.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Local residents say the Naiman Chemical Refinery Zone has been polluting the area with toxic waste, and have staged protests which read: &#8220;Strongly protest serious pollution from the chemical refinery!&#8221; and &#8220;Give the Naiman people back their clean water and blue sky!&#8221;<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>Video clips of the protest published by the U.S.-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC) show police in full riot gear chasing protesters, with sporadic bursts of what sounds like gunfire.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Dozens of people were detained in the clashes, while more than 100 were sent to hospital with injuries sustained during the melee, local residents and SMHRIC said.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;More than 1,000 local people went [out in protest], to prevent the vehicles carrying raw materials from getting into the refinery,&#8221; a villager who asked to remain anonymous told RFA on Monday.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;The riot police and fire brigade came rushing over here, and attacked people with electric batons, and beat them up,&#8221; he said. &#8220;More than 2,000 police came over here yesterday evening.&#8221;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;More than 170 people were injured, and they detained more than 70 people,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They haven&#8217;t yet released those they detained.&#8221;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;They used rubber bullets, and some people had head injuries from them,&#8221; the villager said. He also confirmed that tear gas fired on the crowds.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Rubber bullets<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>A resident from another village, around a kilometer from the refinery, said some 20 people had been detained from his village alone. &#8220;There were several villages involved in this,&#8221; the resident of Daolisui village told RFA.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>An official who answered the phone at the Naiman Banner government offices on Monday said the government is doing everything it can to mediate the dispute.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&#8220;We take this very seriously, and our leaders are basically all down there at the scene, to see what&#8217;s going on,&#8221; the official said.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>But he declined to comment further. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t go there, so there are a lot of things I&#8217;m not sure about,&#8221; he said.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>An ethnic Mongolian resident identified by a single name Geegee also told SMHRIC that rubber bullets were fired on the crowd.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&#8220;Rubber bullets are being shot at protesters, and high-pressure water guns and tear gas are also being used,&#8221; she said.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&#8220;Yesterday, about 100 people were injured and 50 were arrested. One of the injured was confirmed dead in the hospital today,&#8221; Geegee told SMHRIC, although RFA was unable to confirm the reported death.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/china\/mongolia-protest-04062015103918.html\">For detail please visit here<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;The clashes came after the authorities mobilized some 2,000 riot police to end three weeks of protests over alleged pollution from a chemical plant near Daachin-tal (in Chinese, Daqintala) village in Naiman Banner, the Mongolian equivalent of a county.&lt;\/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&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-46418","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\/46418","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=46418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}