25 Sep 2011

Protests over land sale

1:05 pm on 25 September 2011

Protests have taken place for a third day in a city in southern China over a land sale.

Communist Party officials in Wukan village, which is part of Lufeng city, in Guangdong province are acused of selling the land to developers.

According to the South China Morning Post, a Communist Party building, a police station and an industrial park were amongst those targeted.

The BBC reports the unrest began on Wednesday. Images on internet forums showed villagers marching with a banner that read: ''Return my ancestral farmland''.

Lufeng officials said only a few hundred people had been involved.

A Reuters reporter who visited Lufeng on Friday said several hundred people were still protesting outside government offices, calling for their land to be returned.

The BBC says an often-heard complaint is that corrupt officials collude with developers to sell farmland without giving farmers the proper compensation.