By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, December 23, 2005; 12:24 PM

BEIJING, Dec. 23 -- Chen Weiying, a peasant protest leader in southern China whose struggle was the subject of a Washington Post article Nov. 12, was detained by police and has been in custody since Dec. 1, a peasant rights group reported Friday.

Chen, 43, the mother of two daughters, was formally charged sometime after her arrest with involvement in an illegal lottery, according to Hou Wenzhuo, director of the Empowerment and Rights Institute (EARI). Hou and others from her group advised Chen and fellow farmers in their long battle against land confiscations at Sanshan, a small but swiftly developing community on an island in the Zhu River on the outskirts of Guangzhou.

Governments at various levels in China organize officially sponsored lotteries. But it is illegal to organize or participate in privately sponsored lotteries. The government charges did not specify what exactly Chen is alleged to have done; an official of the Sanshan Public Security Bureau, reached by telephone, declined to discuss the case.

Hou said the accusation was a pretext for detaining Chen because of her anti-government agitation during the past six months. The struggle in Sanshan, where local authorities are taking farmland to build a warehouse zone, came at a time when unrest and riots have erupted with increasing frequency across China, particularly in the economically booming Guangdong province, as industrial development relentlessly encroaches on agriculture.

"Chen Weiying's arrest is another attempt to crush the series of farmers' rights campaigns, particularly land rights campaigns, in Guangdong province," Hou's group said in a statement.

"The Guangdong provincial government has undertaken many repressive actions, often involving violence on activists, in the past year. The arrest of Chen Weiying is particularly troublesome because she was an effective democratic grassroots leader. EARI recognizes her role as a land rights and farmer rights activist, and more importantly as a unique woman human rights defender who helped encourage farmers and women to assert their rights."

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

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