The LA Times is reporting some Chinese villagers have had enough and are fighting back on the heavy fines imposed on them for having more than one child. It’s hard to tell whether the photos in the LA Times are from a labor protest versus a protest about the one-child policy. One of the captions says it’s a labor protest in Macau, which is in a different province from where the riots are being reported. However, it’s also being reported by Chinese media:
Seven towns in a rural part of the Guangxi autonomous region erupted in violence over heavy fines and other measures to impose tighter family planning controls in the area, the official Xinhua press agency said.The police in southwestern China arrested 28 people for instigating riots over family planning controls last weekend, but officials were dispatched to affected regions to "deal with complaints" about the area's strict measures to enforce birth control measures, state media said on Wednesday.
Local officials are all corrupt, they don't care about the ordinary people at all," said a woman surnamed Yuan in Shapi township where one of the earliest riots took place on May 19. "The only thing they think about is money."
In a campaign that began in March, teams of men dressed in military fatigues and wielding electric cattle prods and sledge hammers began scouring towns and villages. They imposed fines on suspected violators as well as looting and ransacking the homes of those that could not pay, Yuan and scores of others said.
Cattle prods?!
Fines of below 5,000 yuan (650 dollars) for a second child had risen to more than 12,000 yuan -- at least four times average annual rural incomes in the region -- locals said.
Work teams kept no records of the property taken or destroyed from families that could not pay, they added.
Most shockingly, officials detained pregnant women who had not been approved to give birth and forced them to abort, locals said, while both men and women of child-bearing age were forcefully sterilised if they had broken the law.
"They do not know how to handle the family planning policy, they never have, so now they are resorting to cruel and inhumane methods," Yuan said.
Oh, I get it now. If you’re rich, you can afford to pay the fine for a second child. But if you’re poor, you’re out of luck. So much for your classless society, Mao.
