China: Fuzhou blasts signal growing peasant ferment
At least two people were killed and six wounded by three explosions within an hour on May 26 at government office buildings in Fuzhou, in southern China's Jiangxi province. The targets were the Fuzhou Procurator's Office, the Linzhuan District government building and the Linzhuan Food and Drug Administration office. The attacker was said to ben unemployed man named Qian Mingqi, 52, who was himself among those killed in the blasts. Reports indicated Qian was a farmer angry over the handling of a court case. Feeds he posted on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, protested that his home was demolished in 2002 to make way for a new highway, without adequate compensation: "My newly built home was demolished illegally so that I incurred a great loss. After ten years of futile petitioning, I am forced to take a path I don't want to take. I want to seek justice but there's no justice; jackals and wolves are everywhere in Linchuan district in Fuzhou." During his fight to keep his home, Qian's wife was hung upside down by a demolition team, and died a few days later. His land seized for the new Beijing-Fujian expressway was never built on, and remains vacant. (Spero News, May 28; NYT, May 26)
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