Huang Weizhong, male, born on February 14, 1960, a farmer from a village in Chengxiang District, Putian City, Fujian Province, People’s Republic of China, is detained and then sentenced to 3-year in prison for representing farmers seeking administrative and legal redress for forced appropriation of land.  

Mr. Huang led hundreds of people in protests against low levels of compensation for expropriation of farm land. Farmers from a dozen of villages in Chengxiang District, Putian City, had resorted to petitioning and lawsuit to seek redress for lost land since 2003 without getting any responses from authorities. In early 2005, 676 villagers from 10 villages authorized Mr. Huang to be their representative to present their complaints and demands to the provincial government for an administrative review. The government refused. Then they filed lawsuits with local, provincial and the Supreme courts, all of which refused to admit the case for legal proceedings. On August 4, 2005, villagers handed in an application for permit for demonstration, which was not accepted by the Putian Public Security Bureau.

Originally abducted and taken back to Fujian by Putian police when he went to petition on the compensation issue in Beijing on November 9, 2005, Mr. Huang has been in custody since then. He was put under criminal detention on November 24, 2005, and then formal arrest on December 28, 2006. Around the same time, other farmers in Putian have also been taken in for questioning, sometimes detained for more than 24 hours.  About two dozen villagers gathered in front of the Bureau demanding an account of the denial. They got into some disputes with security guards, which temporarily blocked traffic.

Huang was detained at the No. 2 Putian Detention Center. Family has been barred from visiting Huang at the detention center. Huang’s brother, who hired the lawyer, handed in documents suing local police for arbitrary detention to the Ministry of Public Security and the Fujian Province Public Security Bureau in late December 2005 without getting any response. His lawyer Lu Guang, of Dingtai Law Firm in Liaoning Province, who visited him in mid-January, said he thought Huang had been beaten as he was bleeding from his mouth and had bruises. Huang was reportedly forced to work 14 hours a day in the detention center.

Huang Weizhong was tried on “suspicion of gathering crowds to disturb social order” by the Chengxiang District Court in Putian City, Fujian Procince, on March 20, 2006. The Putian Procuratorate brought the charge against Huang (in Chinese, at Article_Show.asp?ArticleID=547).  His lawyer Lu Guang made non-guilty defense in court on the basis that they did not violate any laws in seeking administrative and legal redress of (in Chinese, at Article_Show.asp?ArticleID=654). The lawyer argued that Chinese citizens have constitutional rights to assemble and demonstrate, and Chinese laws allow them to sue government officials/agencies. While the indictment claimed that Huang had incited villagers to oppose the measuring of their land and blocked the work of requisition, Lu said that in fact Huang had informed villagers about state laws and encouraged them to protect their rights in accordance with the law.