On June 6, in Tianlongshan Hanpoli Village, Shichongkou Town, Xinhua County, Loudi City, Hunan Province, the land was forcibly occupied and mined for marble. When villagers attempted to stop the operation, they were met with violent law enforcement by the police, resulting in a 98-year-old elderly person being injured and hospitalized.
One of the villagers, Mr. Li Hua (alias), recounted the sequence of events to a reporter from Epoch Times.
Dozens of villagers barricaded the road that the marble mining vehicles had to pass through on June 6. A 98-year-old lady sat in the middle of the road holding a stool. In the afternoon around three or four o’clock, several police officers, led by the local police station chief, arrived. The chief officer grabbed the stool the elderly lady was sitting on and threw it to the ground, breaking it. He then used the stool leg to threaten the villagers, challenging them to take legal action if they dared.
According to Li Hua, disregarding the elderly person’s age, the police forcibly dragged the elderly lady, causing bruises and injuries, leading to her hospitalization.
Since the incident, Li Hua and other villagers have been lodging complaints to relevant authorities and even submitted a complaint to the local disciplinary commission, but their pleas have been ignored. The police did not visit the hospital to check on the elderly woman or apologize to her.
The source of the incident, as explained by Li Hua, stems from a land dispute. Since the second half of last year, the town government colluded with developers to expropriate villagers’ lands for marble mining under the guise of building resettlement houses. The compensation for each mu of land was 40,000 yuan, which was to be distributed among all villagers, with each household receiving around tens of thousands of yuan.
Li Hua stated that the remaining six or seven households’ lands were not surveyed and demarcated, yet the town government forcibly occupied the land for marble mining. Villagers have been fighting for their rights, and several villagers have been arrested during this period.
The local residents’ homes have become unsafe due to the mining activities, turning the village into a resettlement site for those whose houses were damaged. However, the local government has not built any resettlement houses but instead started mining activities. “They occupied our land under the pretext of resettlement, but they didn’t build any houses; they were just focused on mining marble,” said Li Hua. “If the government wants to expropriate our lands, the villagers must protect their own rights.”
Li Hua revealed that hundreds of villagers are dissatisfied with the town government’s forced land acquisition but are afraid to speak up. Currently, only six or seven households have stood up to oppose the mining, but they lack support and have nowhere to appeal.
Villagers are concerned about the impact of the mining activities on their homes, fearing that their houses will become unsafe in the future.
Li Hua affirmed that the villagers will continue to fight for their rights and uphold what is rightfully theirs.
Upon contacting the Shichongkou Town government, Epoch Times reporters could not establish a connection through phone calls.