Chinese Police Accused of Killing Teenager

Chinese police clubbed a teenage protester to death and the authorities then bribed her family to keep quiet about the killing, Hong Kong media reported yesterday, as a violent demonstration by villagers against the forced seizure of their land by developers continued into the new year.

Feng Meiying, aged about 14, was reported to have been fatally beaten on Saturday night, when police attempted to break up a protest by several hundred residents of Sanjiao, in the southern province of Guangdong.

Local residents said the security forces used electric batons and other weapons after the demonstrators blocked a road, threw stones and smashed up police vehicles. One witness told reporters the authorities switched off the street lights before the counter-attack, which led to several dozen injuries.

According to the South China Morning Post, local officials paid Feng’s parents 200,000 yuan (£14,000) on condition they told the outside world she died of a heart attack. An aunt said the girl’s body was cremated yesterday. She denied that Feng had been involved in the clashes with police. "My niece did not come to the highway on Saturday night because it is far from our home. She died of heart trouble," the aunt told the newspaper.

But other villagers said schoolgirl Feng had been one of the stone throwers. She was reportedly thrashed unconscious after being dragged from underneath a police car. "More than 200 pairs of eyes witnessed the girl being beaten," an unnamed villager was quoted as saying.

Most of the mainland media have been forbidden from covering the incident. The state-run news agency Xinhua carried a brief report, which blamed the villagers for the disturbance and claimed only six people had been injured. "No one died in the incident ... and police used no tear gas or electric batons or water cannon while dispersing the petitioners and onlookers," the report quoted a spokesman in the nearby city of Zhongshan as saying.

The number and intensity of such demonstrations is rising sharply. According to official data, 3.8 million people took part in "incidents involving the masses" in 2004. The 74,000 protests represented a sevenfold rise on the 1994 figure.

Most of the clashes, including the latest, were sparked by property disputes. Villagers in Sanjiao, in one of China’s most developed and polluted areas, were enraged by a government program to buy land for an industrial zone. They were told the land would be used for a road, but later found out it would be turned over to chemical and garment factories. The state offered villagers compensation of less than 800 yuan a year, which many considered inadequate to cover lost earnings.