SCMP.com: Violence flares in Hunan as hired thugs collect pollution surcharge

Thursday, November 3, 2005
Violence flares in Hunan as hired thugs collect pollution surcharge
MINNIE CHAN

An attempt by local officials in Hunan province to collect a pollution surcharge from small family business operators ended in a violent clash on Tuesday.

At least four people, including an 80-year-old woman, were injured during the scuffles.

Taxi driver Wang Shunlin witnessed the violence and yesterday said the four people were injured when local court staff and officials from the Qidong county Environmental Protection Bureau led more than 10 men, who appeared to be hired thugs, into the town of Baidishi at 9am to collect a 5,000 yuan clean-air fee from each business.

"They [the men] did not wear official uniforms or show any identification when they collected the fees," Mr Wang said. "They even carried the shop owners or their relatives outside when they refused to pay."

He said villagers surrounded the men's vehicles to free their relatives because they feared they would later have to pay thousands of yuan to have the detainees released.

"A woman who is more than 80 crawled under one of the cars when she realised her husband and son were being taken away," Mr Wang said.

He said the men hit and kicked the old woman when they failed to get her to come out from under the car. They finally dragged her out, but she crawled under again. "The cold-blooded men then drove over the poor granny," Mr Wang said.

He said more than 1,000 villagers surrounded the men, provoking a violent clash between the groups that ended when the men fled.

Mr Wang said the woman was taken to hospital, where she was still under observation last night.

"Local officials are just keeping quiet about it and refusing to investigate," he said, adding that officials had mobilised many jobless men as collection agents to gather the fees.

An official from the town office yesterday confirmed that local environmental protection bureau and district court enforced the compulsory collection of clean-air charges on Tuesday.

"But I don't know what happened during the action," he said.

An official from the Qidong Environmental Protection Bureau's finance department yesterday denied they had collected a 5,000 yuan clean-air fee from each family business.

"The clean-air fee depends on how much water and fuel the businesses use. We only have one or two firms which have to pay 5,000 yuan," the official said, refusing to explain what methods had been used to collect fees from villagers.