Source from: http://www.chinabuzz.net/buzz/violence-in-zengcheng-guangzhou-escalates/
June 12, the large scale conflict between the police and citizens, in Xintang Town (新唐鎮), Zengcheng City (增城市), Guangzhou (廣州), continued escalating into more violence. Over ten thousands of citizens blocked No. 107 National Road and marched from Dadun Village (大墩村) to Xintang Town’s government building. Along the way, the shops were smashed, private automobiles were overturned, and some dozens of police cars were set alight. There were also rumors saying several people have died in the incident.
Regarding this riot, four leading website portals in China (Sina, Tencent , Netease, and Sohu) also made reports, but said that it was an incident that some artful rascals gathered a group of people to make trouble. The municipal committee and government of Guangzhou city have given a lot of attention and taken good measures to solve the incident effectively. And there was no casualty reported.
The website portals explained the cause of the incident was that on June 10, a pregnant woman took roadside to peddle her products blocking the passageway, so Dadun Village’s chengguan officers (also called the village’s public order department officers online) advised her to move away, which however resulted in a conflict. To mediate the conflict, Xintang government immediately sent the leaders and police there, and both sides have reconciled. But when the pregnant woman was being held to the ambulance to receive the treatment by her husband, some rascals stopped it and made trouble. It caused many passers by to gather, and some of citizens created a disturbance by blocking and smashing vehicles. In order to prevent the incident from escalating, the municipal committee and government of Guangzhou city soon reacted to handle it too. Though the incident has been calmed down for a while, there were still protesters that gathered in Dadun village to obstruct the traffic and destroy vehicles, ignoring the good advices from the village’s relevant departments. Later the police authority was forced to sent more police vehicles to take stronger measures and solved the incident effectively. The pregnant woman had no injury according to the hospital report after diagnosing.
However, the reports from these leading website portals were a joke, under the pressure of the Government’s hard control over the Internet, including Phoenix website from Hong Kong which netizens said has become the Government’s tool too after it entered the Mainland market.
According to the posts from Baidu tiebai, and microblogsphere, the truth is that a pregnant woman peddler was violently beaten up by the chengguan officers in Dadun Village, leading the child dead in her womb. (But there were several versions of sayings too. Some said the woman’s husband and a 16-year-old youngster who was there to dissuade the chengguan officers, were beaten to death too. Since all news have been censored and deleted from the Chinese content websites, we don’t know exactly which version is correct.) The matter aroused public anger, and the protesters smashed the chengguan’s car right at the scene.
The incident escalated on June 11, as thousands of citizens blocked No. 107 National Road, and confronted with the village’s public order (chengguan) department. It was said one protester’s leg was broken by high-explosive ray from the public order department. The incident then turned into more violence, when protesters burned the village’s committee and pulblic order department buildings, and an array of policemen (said to be 5000) were sent to the town to crack down, as well as the army, armored cars, and tear bombs.
Check out the pictures below.
