Riot police fired teargas to break up a protest against a planned power station in southern China on Friday and state media showed confessions by two detained activists in an obvious bid to get protesters off the streets. Hong Kong Cable Television Ltd showed police firing several rounds of teargas in Haimen town in Guangdong province, sending hundreds of people scuttling, many covering their mouths and noses with their hands.
Chinese police also detained a reporter, a cameraman and a technician from Hong Kong Cable at the scene, but released them by late afternoon, according to a station staff. Hong Kong Cable is run by I-Cable Communications Ltd, a unit of Wharf Holdings. Hours after the police action, state-run Shantou Television station carried interviews with two detained protesters, a man surnamed Li and a woman surnamed Yung. Sitting behind bars with their heads bowed and handcuffs in full view, the two took turns to confess. "It was wrong to surround the government and block the highway," Li said, with his eyes lowered.
"I do not know the law. If I knew, I will not block the expressway. If I could have understood this, I wouldn't have been so brash," Yung said, her voice shaking. Shantou Television also lined up several Chinese legal experts and quoted them as saying that such actions carried a maximum penalty of five years in jail.
The protests in Haimen, a coastal town of about 120,000 people under the jurisdiction of Shantou city, intensified this week just as people about 130 km (80 miles) further along the coast in Wukan village called off a 10-day blockade of a protest against a land grab by officials.
Protests in China have become relatively common over issues such as corruption, pollution, wages, and land grabs that local-level officials justify in the name of development. People in China are also increasingly unwilling to accept the relentless speed of urbanisation and industrialisation and the impact on the environment and health. Chinese experts put the number of "mass incidents", as such protests are known, at about 90,000 a year in recent years.
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