Chinese activists call for inquiry

Anger over deadly police shooting of villagers mounts

Relatives of a man neighbors said was killed by authorities grieve in Dongzhou village on Monday.

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DONGYONG, China (AP) -- A group of Chinese activists and academics -- including one whose son was killed in the Tiananmen Square crackdown -- called for an inquiry into the deadly police shooting of villagers protesting the seizure of land for a power plant.

The letter, posted on a Web site abroad, also called for the government to publish a list of those killed in the Dec. 6 shootings in Dongzhou, a village northeast of Hong Kong in Guangdong province. The government says three people were killed, while residents put the toll at up to 20.

"We express our strongest protest and condemnation of the Guangdong authorities who created this murder case!" says the letter, dated Sunday.

Its 14 signers include Ding Zilin, a retired Beijing academic whose son was killed in 1989 when China's military crushed the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests.

Such petitions about other complaints have had little impact on the communist government. But Chinese leaders have shown unusual concern about Dongzhou, detaining the commander whose forces opened fire and promising to deal with local grievances.

The letter calls on the national government to investigate the killings, prosecute those responsible and compensate the injured and the families of the dead.

"We hope more people will join us in signing the letter," Liu Xiaobo, a dissident writer who was among the signatories, said Tuesday. "We cannot change the nature of the government overnight, but we can show our awakening and courage."

Also Tuesday, police stepped up security around Dongzhou, setting up roadblocks in surrounding towns even as the government tried to defuse local anger.

Villagers say the protest erupted over complaints that residents received little or no compensation for land taken by the government for construction of a power plant.

The violence last week was the deadliest clash yet in a series of confrontations throughout China between police and villagers who are angry over land seizures for construction of factories, shopping malls and other projects.

Human rights groups have compared the violence in Dongzhou to the Tiananmen killings.

But Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang on Tuesday rejected that comparison.

"Conclusions have been reached on the 1989 incident already. No conclusion yet has been drawn on this event," Qin said at a regular news briefing. "How can we know yet if they are the same type of incident?"

The Chinese government says the nonviolent Tiananmen protests were an anti-government riot that had to be crushed by force. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of people were killed when the military attacked protesters in central Beijing.

President Hu Jintao's government has made a priority of trying to improve life for the 800 million people in China's countryside, many of whom have missed out on the country's 25-year-old economic boom.