Chinese villagers riot over pollution

19 Sep­tem­ber 2011
A solar pan­el fac­to­ry in east­ern Chi­na has been shut down after protests by local res­i­dents over pol­lu­tion fears.

Some 500 vil­lagers staged a three-day protest fol­low­ing the death of large num­bers of fish in a local riv­er.

Some demon­stra­tors broke into the plant in Zhe­jiang province, destroy­ing offices and over­turn­ing com­pa­ny cars before being dis­persed by riot police.

…

RIOTS have bro­ken out in Chi­na against a fac­to­ry pol­lut­ing local water as resis­tance grows glob­al­ly to the neolib­er­al indus­tri­al night­mare.

Reports Chi­na For­bid­den News: “Vil­lagers in Hain­ing city, Zhe­jiang province in Chi­na have held three days of protest against Jinko Solar Co. dis­charg­ing heavy can­cer-caus­ing pol­lu­tion.

“Vil­lagers and jour­nal­ists were beat­en by com­pa­ny secu­ri­ty. The pro­test­ers beat local offi­cials and over­turned four police cars. The police also fired tear gas.

“Online sources state that over 10 peo­ple are injured or dead.

“A human rights activist said that Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty’ (CCP) sys­tem was caus­ing the strug­gle in peo­ple’s lives.

…

“We feel that it is social­ly respon­si­ble to close the fac­to­ry first and to take cor­rec­tive mea­sures,” com­pa­ny spokesman Thomas Jing told the BBC.

He said there had been acci­den­tal dis­charge into the sur­round­ing area dur­ing a rain­storm at the end of August.

He said chem­i­cals used at the fac­to­ry had been stored in an open area rather than a ware­house, and that the cov­er­ing had been ripped off dur­ing the unex­pect­ed­ly harsh weath­er.

Mr Jing said the firm was inves­ti­gat­ing whether the flu­o­ride was respon­si­ble for the death of the fish. A clean-up was also under way, he said.

…

“The Jinko Solar com­pa­ny is a sub­sidiary of a New York Stock Exchange-list­ed Chi­nese solar com­pa­ny, ful­ly financed by Hong Kong Pak­er Tech­nol­o­gy Co., Ltd.

“They pro­duce solar wafers, cells and oth­er prod­ucts, export­ing to more than twen­ty coun­tries with­in Europe, Asia, and the Unit­ed States.

“The plant is locat­ed in Hain­ing city, Zhe­jiang province and Shangrao city, Jiangxi province.
There are over 10,000 employ­ees and the plant cov­ers more than 165 acres.

“Vil­lagers blame the com­pa­ny for dis­charg­ing pol­lut­ed water and harm­ful gas­es into the envi­ron­ment, caus­ing the mas­sive deaths of fish float­ing in the riv­er.

“Local vil­lagers found that there were over 10 peo­ple who devel­oped can­cer as a result of the pol­lu­tion.”

…

This is the lat­est exam­ple of Chi­nese cit­i­zens being spurred to action over envi­ron­men­tal wor­ries. Last week, Shang­hai halt­ed pro­duc­tion at two fac­to­ries over wor­ries about lead poi­son­ing.

Last month, a chem­i­cal fac­to­ry in the north-east­ern city of Dalian was ordered to move after 12,000 res­i­dents took to the streets over pol­lu­tion fears.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14968605
http://vastminority.blogspot.com/2011/09/chinese-villagers-riot-over-pollution.html