Police have arrested 99 villagers in Guangxi for impeding production at a local quarry and blocking police when they tried to arrest suspects.
In the early morning of June 15, police officers arrived in Xiangutang village. According to a post on social media by the local police, they arrested 23 suspects for impeding production at the village’s quarries. When some 100 villagers tried to block the police as they were leaving, police brought back another 76 villagers for questioning under suspicion of obstructing justice.
A Caixin report says some villagers have since been released, but others are still unable to be contacted. Villagers told Caixin that police kicked open the doors when they arrived and offered no legal paperwork to justify the arrests.
“The police came to the village with a list of names provided by village cadres,” a local resident told Sixth Tone. “They put black cloths over their heads, and if someone resisted, they used stun guns.”
This resulted in a standoff between police and villagers that night, as villagers tried to stop police from leaving with the suspects. The police said they took a tolerant approach and tried to avoid confrontation with villagers, forming a wall with their shields and retreating, but villagers stopped them from leaving by yelling threats, pushing, beating them with wooden batons, and shining flashlights into their eyes.
Villagers told Caixin that some other villagers were taken into custody for assembling at the municipal office the next day and demanding that the villagers be released.
According to Caixin, the conflict arose because village representatives contracted the local quarries out to a small group of villagers and contractors without general consent. After going through legal channels in vain, the villagers decided to band together, staying at the quarry for a week to stop production and preventing rocks from being transported off the mountain, villagers told Caixin.
The post from police states that from May 28 to June 3, villagers impeded production at the quarries and blockaded roads using rocks and vehicles because they claim the quarry’s rental contract was invalid, causing the quarry to stop production and causing financial loss to a legitimate enterprise.
