2000 police used to quell pollution protest in China which left one dead
Source: The Guardian
One person died and 50 were arrested after some 2,000 police, using rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons, put down a protest by villagers against pollution from a chemical plant in China’s Inner Mongolia, an overseas human rights group said.
Inner Mongolia has seen sporadic unrest since 2011 when the vast northern region was rocked by protests after an ethnic Mongol herder was killed by a truck after taking part in demonstrations against pollution caused by a coal mine.
Ethnic Mongols, who make up less than 20 percent of Inner Mongolia’s 24 million population, say their grazing lands have been ruined by mining and desertification and that the government has tried to resettle them in permanent houses.
A pipe discharging factory waste water from a coal-to-liquid project into a stream in the hills in Inner Mongolia. A protest among villagers in the region has left one dead and multiple arrests. Photograph: Handout/Reuters
In the latest incident, villagers in Naiman Banner took to the streets to protest against a chemical processing zone they said was polluting farmland and grazing land, the New York-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre said in a statement late on Monday.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/07/2000-police-used-to-quell-pollution-protest-in-china-which-left-one-dead
Already, they say China's population is aging alarmingly (due to the one child rule).
And, it looks like pollution may kill a good number of others off.
This should be Chinese authorities' N°1 preoccupation.