Chinese villagers resettled to make way for the massive Three Gorges dam project were harassed by officials and prevented from petitioning the central government about pollution, a human rights group said Tuesday.
BEIJING — Chinese villagers resettled to make way for the massive Three Gorges dam project were harassed by officials and prevented from petitioning the central government about pollution, a human rights group said Tuesday.
Five villagers representing the 500 residents of Yangguidian, a village in central Hubei province, were taken off a bus by about 40 police officers on Saturday as they tried to travel to Beijing, the New York-based group Human Rights in China said in a statement.
The villagers were relocated to Yangguidian in 1993 in order to make way for the Three Gorges Dam project, it said.
The petitioners planned to complain to the central government about their resettlement terms and to deliver paperwork documenting air and water pollution coming from two factories in Yangguidian, it said.
Residents suffer high rates of kidney disease, skin allergies resulting from wearing clothes washed in the local Maoping River and foul-smelling air caused by factory exhaust, the statement said.
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The pollution stems from local factories operated by the Zigui County Sibao Paper Company and Huafamei Pharmaceuticals, it said.
The five petitioners were identified as Fu Xiancai, Wang Kaifen, Chen Yichun, Yan Kehua, and Gong Wanjun. The statement said Fu has been under police surveillance and repeatedly harassed by local officials since he was interviewed by an American journalist in May.
Such incidents are increasingly common across rural China as villagers rise up against corruption, pollution and the seizure of land for real estate development.
Source: Associated Press
