In Xintiao Town, Tian Tou Village, Xu Wen County, Zhanjiang City, Guangdong Province, the village chief has been met with resistance from hundreds of villagers after privately selling land to construct a photovoltaic power station. The villagers have been fighting for their rights for months without any success. (Video screenshot)
[People News] As the year draws to a close—a time when families come together, and people pray for peace and prosperity in the coming year—countless petitioners, wronged individuals, and workers, farmers, and civil servants who are owed wages continue to suffer, unable to celebrate the holidays in peace.
On Wednesday, December 17, petitioners gathered in People's Park behind the Shanghai Municipal Letters and Calls Office to assert their rights, coinciding with the office's designated petitioners' day.
Gu Guoping, a retired teacher from Shanghai University and a rights activist, reported that on December 17, many wronged petitioners assembled at the northeast corner of People's Park, holding placards that read 'wronged' along with their own petitions. They shouted slogans such as 'wronged', 'down with the Communist Party', and 'freedom belongs to the people'. Shortly thereafter, three groups of police arrived on the scene.
The police were very aggressive, instructing the petitioners to lower their placards. A 95-year-old petitioner, Liu Shuzhen, was taken away by the police for refusing to take down her demand sign. Liu Shuzhen's daughter, Cui Fufang, and another petitioner, Zhou Yan, were also apprehended.
According to Cui Fufang, they were taken to the police station in the square, where the police did not register their personal information and locked them in a small room. They called the police from the Zhoujiadu Street Police Station in Pudong New Area to come and take them, but the officers refused to come and insisted that someone from the street's petition office should come instead. Another petitioner, Zhou Yan, filmed the incident with her mobile phone, but the police forcibly deleted the videos from her phone before releasing her.
Gu Guoping also mentioned that at the protest site, the petitioners accused the police of unfair law enforcement. They hoped to make these photos public to show the world how the oppressive rule of the Chinese Communist Party has left ordinary people with no options.
In Zhanjiang City, Guangdong Province, the village chief of Tiantou Village in Xunwen County has been privately selling land to build a photovoltaic power station, which has faced resistance from hundreds of villagers. The villagers have been fighting to protect their arable land for several months, but the future remains uncertain.
Villagers who spoke to The Epoch Times revealed that the project was approved because the village chief falsified the land sale and lease contracts with a certain photovoltaic company. This company has constructed photovoltaic power stations in several local villages, covering a total area of over 6,000 acres, with Tiantou Village planning to lease 215 acres. However, villagers discovered that dozens of acres of farmland were not leased to the photovoltaic company but were instead sold privately by the village chief, leaving the villagers with nothing. The remaining 190 acres of shrimp ponds were leased to the photovoltaic company.
Additionally, the photovoltaic power station is located just across the road from the villagers' residential area, raising concerns about environmental pollution and other issues, which is why they oppose leasing land for the power station.
Villager Li Hua reported that the village chief falsely claimed that the land sale contract had the approval of two-thirds of the residents. In reality, the villagers had never convened a meeting about this issue, and many names on the contract are fraudulent. As a result, the villagers began to assert their rights starting in July. For several months, they have been stationed at the village entrance, blocking construction vehicles from entering the village to work. However, the villagers expressed doubts about their chances of successfully defending their rights.
Initially, villagers from several other villages were too afraid to oppose and mostly signed in agreement. Now, seeing the villagers of Tian Tou Village standing up for their rights, they also plan to take action against the situation.
In China, as the year draws to a close, numerous groups seeking unpaid wages can be observed in cities of all sizes nationwide. In the past week, reporters have noted at least 10 incidents of road blockages for wage claims in locations such as Baise in Guangxi, Hanchuan in Hubei, Daqing in Heilongjiang, and Shenzhen in Guangdong. Notably, migrant workers in Daqing, Heilongjiang, climbed onto a construction site’s tower crane and remained there for two days and nights to demand their wages.
On the 17th, a construction worker posted online, stating that the central state-owned enterprise he works for is in arrears, saying, 'We can’t live anymore.'
While the farmers seeking their wages are understandably furious and have garnered widespread sympathy from the public, local governments have shown indifference to such group incidents, making it likely that the outcomes will be disappointing. Some netizens commented, 'It’s becoming increasingly difficult to get paid from construction sites each year,' while others noted, 'We still haven’t received what we were owed from 2021 (up to now).'
The problem of unpaid wages among Chinese migrant workers has persisted for a long time, originating from the reform and opening-up period. Despite the government's establishment of systems like the 'wage guarantee fund,' there continues to be a surge in wage disputes at the end of each year. Although the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) asserts that it prioritises the issue of unpaid wages, this is largely limited to promotional statements. In practice, these issues have worsened year after year. Currently, with the economy in decline and various sectors facing hardship, local finances are under significant strain, which has intensified the issue of wage arrears and made it increasingly difficult for workers to claim their unpaid wages. This situation has created an unprecedented survival crisis for low-income labourers, leading to frequent protests across the country. The resulting unrest is likely to jeopardise social stability and the governance stability of the CCP. △
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