Corruption : affrontements à 安阳Anyang (河南 Henan) – 1 janvier 2012

Protest Against Corruption Erupts in Eastern China

theepochtimes.com

By Joseph Wu & Helena Zhu: January 4, 2012Last Updated: January 4, 2012

Chinese officials deny incident

A protest broke out in Anyang of the eastern Chinese province of Henan on Jan. 1 after tens of billions of yuan were arguably embezzled in a government-involved scheme. (Weibo.com)

Crowds took to the streets in the eastern Chinese province of Henan on New Year’s Day, protesting against the long-standing embezzlement of public monies by local officials.

Although Chinese authorities denied the incident, witnesses said the crowd gathered near a local train station in the city of Anyang, sang China’s national anthem “March of the Volunteers,” and engaged in a stand-off with the police.

According to posts on Internet fora, authorities blocked off the roads while riot police shouted at the protesters, threatened to arrest them if they fail to disperse within 10 minutes. The deputy director of Public Security Bureau shouted at the protesters with a loudspeaker, “All of you have already witnessed the power of our security forces. You need to believe that the government can solve all the problems.”

In response, the thousands of people who had gathered booed loudly at the police and yelled “shoot at me.” Although exasperated, the crowd stayed on the sidewalks and remained orderly.

“Some 30,000 people blocked the roads in Anyang and confronted about 1,000 traffic and armed policemen,” a netizen calling himself Distressed Crowd posted on China’s Twitter-like service, Sina Weibo. “Leaders of some 3,000 government-endorsed corporations came to Anyang to raise funds, and more than 70 billion yuan (US$11 billion) were completely misappropriated,” the netizen wrote. Read more…