Chinese protester 'paralyzed by beating'

One of the most vocal opponents of the Three Gorges dam has been left reportedly paralyzed by a savage beating after he ignored police warnings not to speak to foreign journalists. Fu Xiancai, a land-rights activist, was attacked by unknown assailants on his way home from the Zigui public security bureau in Hubei province, where he had been interrogated about an interview he gave to reporters from the German television station ARD. Fu was struck from behind on June 8. The blow broke his neck, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down but able to speak. He is under 24-hour police surveillance in a hospital in Yichang city. According to the organization Human Rights in China, Fu had been warned by police and local officials that he would be severely punished for talking to foreign journalists and trying to petition the central government about the forced relocations that he and more than a million others have undergone to make way for the world's biggest hydroelectric project. Many activists appeal to the international media because domestic news organizations are tightly censored. But the local police chief, Wang Xiankui, warned Fu last May that this was illegal. Since then, the activist has been beaten by thugs using batons, had his home broken into and received numerous death threats. "We have no doubt that this incident was partly a revenge for Fu Xiancai's statement on German television; also, because he had been called a traitor by local authorities for having talked to foreign media," the director general of ARD, Jobst Plog, wrote in a letter to the Chinese ambassador in Berlin. He called on the government to ensure that "Chinese citizens do not have to fear for their health or life in the future" just because they make a factual statement to the foreign media. The past year has seen a rash of violence against rural activists, including the beatings of lawyers, the harassment of academics and journalists, and the killing of three land protesters by police in Dongzhou last December. In many incidents, the perpetrators have escaped punishment, while the demonstrators have been arrested for upsetting social order. Six land protesters in Foshan, Guangdong province, were detained recently on extortion charges and accused of running a mafia-like organization after they opposed the seizure of fields their families had farmed for generations. "Of course, this has nothing to do with blackmail," said a local resident. "It is because they were leading figures in a big demonstration last May." Police have also pressed charges against Chen Guangcheng, the blind activist who exposed the Shandong government's coercive family planning methods to the central government and foreign media. After being kept under house arrest for almost a year, Chen now stands accused of inciting people to disrupt transport, his wife Yuan Wejiang told reporters. She remains under house arrest.