The Tangshan protest occurred in 2004 after more than 11,000 farmers in

Hebei Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, an ...

Province, China, signed a petition calling for the removal of Communist Party officials who were allegedly involved in corruption. The protest led to a crackdown on rights activists and further repression of the farmers.

Petition

Between 1992 and 1997, 23,000 Chinese farmers were resettled in

Tangshan Tangshan () is a coastal, industrial prefecture-level city in the northeast of Hebei province. It is located in the eastern part of Hebei Province and the northeastern part of the North China Plain. It is located in the central area of the Boha ...

City, Hebei, to make way for the Taolinkou reservoir, some to the east of Beijing. By 2004, more than eight years after they had been moved, the displaced farmers had not been properly compensated. The farmers asserted that up to 60 million yuan of compensation funds had been misappropriated by officials from the local government. They said they were owed 13,000 yuan (U.S. $1,570) per household in compensation but some had received only half the amount, while others had received nothing. Under the leadership of Zhang Youren, a peasant activist, the farmers organised a petition. In February 2004, a group of ten farmer representatives traveled to the capital to submit their petition to the

National People's Congress The National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China (NPC; ), or simply the National People's Congress, is constitutionally the supreme state authority and the national legislature of the People's Republic of China. With 2, ...

. In his opening speech to the Congress, Prime Minister

Wen Jiabao Wen Jiabao (born 15 September 1942) is a retired Chinese politician who served as the Premier of the State Council from 2003 to 2013. In his capacity as head of government, Wen was regarded as the leading figure behind China's economic policy ...

promised a crackdown on corruption and illegal land seizures. Nevertheless, the farmers from Tangshan were rounded up by the Beijing police who accused them of being

Falun Gong Falun Gong (, ) or Falun Dafa (; literally, "Dharma Wheel Practice" or "Law Wheel Practice") is a new religious movement.Junker, Andrew. 2019. ''Becoming Activists in Global China: Social Movements in the Chinese Diaspora'', pp. 23–24, 33, 119 ...

members and subversives. Zhang Youren was put under pressure to denounce the 'criminals' who had supported the petition. Zhao Yan quickly lost his job with the China Reform magazine and by the end of the year he had been imprisoned; he was still in jail two years later when the authorities finally convicted him of fraud. Li Boguang was arrested in December 2004 but released after a few weeks on condition that he had no further involvement in farmer protests. Yu Meisun, who had already served an earlier jail sentence, was able to publish an online diary that gave details of police harassment.

Petition

References

Further reading

See also