Case: Putian Land Eviction and Detention of Rural Activist

This case demonstrates the difficulty for farmers challenging requisition decisions or compensation packages to even obtain a hearing through the administrative process. It is not only the courts that refuse to hear cases, governments refuse even to go through the motions of conducting an administrative review. By contrast, the law is used as a blunt instrument against those who emerge as “leaders” of farmer protest actions, however much they try to use the law to resolve their grievances.

Putian is a city near Fujian Province’s capital, Fuzhou, known for shoe manufacturing. This case, which began in May 2003, involved requisition of land in 10 villages in the city suburbs, affecting more than 10,000 farmers. Local authorities claimed that they needed the land for urban development. The farmers assert the proper legal procedures for requisition and determining compensation and resettlement fees were not followed.

After two years of trying in vain to persuade the local authorities to negotiate on the issues of concern to them, the farmers decided to take further action. They chose representatives, including Huang Weizhong, and appealed through all available avenues: administrative review, administrative litigation and petitioning. Huang undertook detailed study of the relevant laws and regulations as part of this campaign.

Of the land requisitioned in Huang Weizhong’s village, Yanshou, 300 mu was classified as “reserved land” rather than “public interest land.” Since it was assumed that the government intended to directly sell the use rights to this land on the primary market, the farmers argued that the authorities taking it over should negotiate with them over compensation. (It is of course questionable whether requisition of land for undesignated purposes is legal under the current system, which specifies that land may be taken by the state “in the public interest.”) According to media reports, the local government offered farmers compensation of 2,800 yuan per mu, and sold the land to a developer for construction of luxury residential housing for 92,800 yuan per mu.

The farmers submitted requests for administrative review to the Putian City government, the Fujian provincial government and the State Council. The Fujian provincial government denied their request on the grounds that the document approving the requisition of their land was “internal.” They appealed this decision to the courts, but the Fuzhou Intermediate People’s Court said that it was in the jurisdiction of the location of the immovable property concerned, while the Putian Intermediate People’s Court said that the case should be heard in the jurisdiction of the defendant, and the Fujian Higher People’s Court just said that it could not deal with government matters. The farmers then took their appeal all the way to the Supreme People’s Court, asking that the SPC force the local courts to hear the case or hear it itself, but were treated as if they were petitioners and just sent away with a piece of paper saying they had been received. When they went to request that the State Council order the Fujian government to accept their request for administrative review or undertake the review itself, the reception was no better: the State Council did not even give them a response.

According to the 1991 Implementation Rules for the Land Management Law, governments at county level and above have the duty to mediate in cases of disputes about compensation for requisitioned land, but all requests for such mediation—from local government up to the State Council—were ignored. When the villagers sought to file suit in the Beijing Higher People’s Court challenging the State Council’s refusal to act, the Case Filing Division officials not only refused to accept their materials, but also said that if they sent them in by mail, they would be thrown into the trash.

Thus they were unable to find any effective redress for their grievances. Blocked at every turn, the villagers decided to apply to stage a peaceful protest march. On August 4, 2005, 27 representatives including Mr. Huang Weizhong submitted an application for permission to demonstrate on August 15 to the Fuzhou City Public Security Bureau. On August 13, Mr. Huang Weizhong was summoned for questioning by the police.  During the 12-hour interrogation, police threatened him and forced him to withdraw the application.  He refused, insisting that all citizens have a constitutional right to peaceful demonstration. Permission was denied, and the application itself was said to “seriously disturb public order.”  After Mr. Huang was released, he and other villagers’ representatives were threatened repeatedly by the local government and other authorities, they were put under surveillance, taken in for questioning, and some had even been illegally detained between August 14 and 17.  This made it impossible for them, who filed the application, to appeal within three days of the rejection to a higher office in the provincial capital.  The plan to hold demonstration was forced to be aborted.    

On November 9, 2005, Huang Weizhong went to Beijing as a representative of 667 farmers to pursue their appeals. But the Putian police were waiting for him, and immediately upon his arrival, they detained him and took him back to Fujian under guard. The following day he was charged with “disturbing public order” and given 15 days’ public order detention. Then on November 24, he was subject to criminal detention for “gathering crowds to disturb public order,” and on December 28, he was formally arrested on the same charge. On February 28, 2006, the Procuratorate of Chengxiang District, Putian City submitted their indictment to the Chengxiang District Court.

The case against Huang was postponed several times, but finally went to trial in mid May 2006. On May 17, Huang was sentenced to three years in prison for “gathering crowds to disturb public order.” Huang’s defense lawyer, Lu Guang, pointed out numerous serious inconsistencies in the prosecution evidence in his defense statement. These included the fact that there had been no report of any disturbance at the Fuzhou Public Security Bureau where Huang and his fellow villagers went to apply for a demonstration permit (on August 4, 2005) made until three months after the event (on December 1, 2005, when he was already in detention), as well as the fact that Huang was not even present at the time the alleged blocking of the doors of the Putian Intermediate People’s Court occurred, while the villagers who were there had actually been invited into a judge’s office to speak to him. But these problems were ignored by the court, and Huang was convicted as charged. He is appealing his conviction.   

Huang Weizhong is now appealing his conviction.  His brother Huang Weide and his lawyer Lu Guang will represent him in the higher court of appeal.

(For more information about this case, see CRD case files in Chinese at Article_Show.asp?ArticleID=547, for an English report on this case in the Los Angeles Times, see Article_Show.asp?ArticleID=1031)