Associated Press - June 23, 2007 7:43 AM ET

BEIJING (AP) - A town in southern China has reportedly been the scene of a clash between police and thousands of protesters over the eviction of an elderly woman.

A human rights monitor and a newspaper report authorities were trying to evict the 90-year-old woman to make way for a real-estate project. The woman has been fighting eviction since 2004 and was the last holdout in the neighborhood. There's no word on whether she's been allowed to stay.

The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy and the newspaper, Beijing News, report that at one point, the woman was on her roof defending herself with a homemade gasoline bomb.

Some 20,000 people angered by the attempt to kick her out clashed with officers. The reports say 20 people were hurt and six were arrested.

Such conflicts have been occurring regularly in China, where local authorities are seizing farmland and older housing for development.

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