Riot police have fired teargas and beaten residents in southern China after they took to the streets to protest against a local construction project.
Hundreds of residents in Wenlou, a township in Guangdong province about 60 miles from Hong Kong, protested on Friday against plans for a large crematorium in an area officials had previously said would become an “ecological park”.
Footage recorded by residents appeared to show riot police firing teargas, throwing rocks and beating protesters. Videos also showed residents throwing firecrackers at the police and tipping over a car. One protester was seen holding a sign that read “The people of Wenlou do not agree”.
“The whole town is protesting. The government has violently deployed people to suppress it,” said one resident, who asked not to be named, adding that police had beaten elderly residents and young students. “Now police are like crazy dogs, beating whoever they see. Where is the law? Where is morality?”
【广东茂名示威防暴警出动镇压】
— 自由亚洲电台 (@RFA_Chinese) November 29, 2019
2019年11月28日，广东茂名化州市文楼镇，因为居民反对兴建殡仪馆和火葬场，爆发大规模示威。当局派出大批防暴警察镇压，出动装甲车，施放催泪弹驱散示威者，双方发生冲突，网民拍摄的视频显示，有警察围殴民众，并在地上拖行，多名村民受伤，据说警察曾开枪示警。 pic.twitter.com/WgabYfuS4O
Small-scale protests against projects such as incinerators, chemical plants or crematoriums are not uncommon in China’s more rural areas. But the Wenlou demonstrations come at a time when authorities are especially sensitive to the possibility of protests spreading from nearby Hong Kong, where anti-government protests are now in their sixth month.
While many Chinese in the mainland oppose those protests, the risk may be higher in Guangdong province where many have family or personal connections with Hong Kong.
Residents in Wenlou expressed sentiments similar to those in Hong Kong: anger at what they perceived to be police brutality and a sense they had been forced into the streets after being misled by local officials.
“If not pushed to a dead end, who would choose to hit their heads against a rock,” said another resident from Wenlou. She said police had sealed off all the roads and she was unable to share videos from the scene.
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A new Hong Kong extradition law is proposed, which would allow people to be transferred to mainland China for a variety of crimes. Residents fear it could lead to politically motivated extraditions into China's much harsher judicial system.
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Large public demonstrations start as thousands march in the streets to protest against the extradition bill.
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Hong Kong lawmakers scuffle in parliament during a row over the law.
(May 30, 2019)
Hong Kong's leader, Carrie Lam, introduces concessions to the extradition bill, including limiting the scope of extraditable offences, but critics say they are not enough.
(June 12, 2019)
The scale of protests continues to increase as more than half a million people take to the streets. Police use rubber bullets and teargas against the biggest protests Hong Kong has seen for decades.
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Lam says the proposed extradition law has been postponed indefinitely.
(July 1, 2019)
The protests continue as demonstrators storm the Legislative Council, destroying pictures, daubing graffiti on the walls and flying the old flag of Hong Kong emblazoned with the British union flag. The protests coincide with the 22nd anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong from the UK back to China.
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Armed men in white T-shirts thought to be supporting the Chinese government attack passengers and passers-by in Yuen Long metro station, while nearby police take no action.
(July 30, 2019)
44 protesters are charged with rioting, which further antagonises the anti-extradition bill movement.
(September 1, 2019)
By now the protest movement has coalesced around five key demands: complete withdrawal of the proposed extradition bill, withdrawal of the use of the word "riot" in relation to the protests, unconditional release of arrested protesters and charges against them dropped, an independent inquiry into police behaviour and the implementation of genuine universal suffrage.
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The first charges are brought against protesters for covering their faces, after authorities bring in new laws banning face masks in order to make it easier to identify or detain protesters.
(October 11, 2019)
Hong Kong officials spark outrage in the city as it revealed that nearly a third of protesters arrested since June have been children. Seven hundred and 50 out of the 2,379 people arrested were under 18, and 104 were under 16.
(October 16, 2019)
Lam is forced to deliver a key annual policy speech via video link after after being heckled in parliament, as the legislative council resumed sessions after it was suspended on 12 June. Later in the day one of the protest leaders, Jimmy Sham, was attacked by assailants wielding hammers and knives.
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Chan Tong-kai, the murder suspect whose case prompted the original extradition bill is released from prison, saying that he is willing to surrender himself to Taiwan. The extradition bill is also formally withdrawn, a key demand of protesters.
(November 8, 2019)
Chow Tsz-lok, 22, becomes the first fatality of the protests. Chow, a computer science student at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), was found injured in a car park in Tseung Kwan O in Kowloon, where he was believed to have fallen one storey. Protesters had been trying to disrupt a police officer’s wedding, which was being held in the area. A week later a 70-year-old cleaner who is thought to have been hit by a brick during a clash between protesters and pro-Beijing residents becomes the second person to die.
(November 18, 2019)
Hundreds of protestors are trapped as police lay siege to a university, firing tear gas.
(November 24, 2019)
Local elections deliver a landslide victory for pro-democracy campaigners.
Posts related to the Wenlou protests appear to have been removed from the Chinese microblogging website Weibo, but some footage was reposted to Twitter and other social media sites.
One Weibo user who had posted several videos wrote on Friday: “The people of Wenlou are pledging their lives to resist, but they have been met with suppression by the police, randomly arresting and hitting people. My last few posts have been deleted. Please save our town.”
According to the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, police in Wenlou raided homes early on Friday, arresting those believed to had participated in protests on Thursday when hundreds of people attempted to march on the local government offices. Residents told the paper that about 50 people had been detained.
