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Chinese residents protest against proposed waste incinerator

Police confront 4,000 bottle-hurling demonstrators

Residents in the southern Chinese town of Luoyang protested against a proposed refuse incinerator for a second day yesterday.

Several thousand people gathered on a street in front of the government offices in Guangdong province’s Boluo county, with riot police standing by.

Between 3,000 and 4,000 people took part and were confronted by police with shields and batons when they started to throw water bottles.

The protest dispersed after an official came out with a loudspeaker to tell crowds that the government had not yet decided on a location for the incinerator.

Between 10,000 and 20,000 people had taken to the streets on Saturday to voice their fears of the plant’s impact on health and the environment.

Witnesses claimed the protest was orderly until police snatched banners from the protesters, dispersed crowds by force and dragged away demonstrators and spectators.

Police said late on Saturday that they had taken away 24 people on suspecion of illegally gathering crowds to disturb social order.

An earlier police statement said that a “handful of people with ulterior motives ignored laws to organise ordinary people … to illegally gather and demonstrate.”

However, Boluo county’s Communist Party said late on Saturday that people had gathered in a public square “spontaneously” to question the location for the proposed project. 

It insisted that there had been no extreme behaviour or blocking of roads. 

It said four sites had been set up in the county to hear public opinion and give feedback on the proposed incinerator.

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