Mon, November 23, 2009
By Lin Meilian
Twenty-four demonstrators were arrested after a merchants protest Saturday at a wholesale market in Kunming, Yunnan Province.
An estimated 100 shopkeepers protested the scheduled closing and relocation of the Luosiwan wholesale market, the city's largest, to a location 10 miles away from the downtown area.
The merchants gathered at the market at 10 am Saturday, setting up roadblocks, chanting slogans and mobilizing some 1,000 supporters who blocked traffic, the city's Public Security Bureau said.
The protestors roughed up a passerby who tried to act as a mediator and three police cars were attacked on the road.
The bureau said some police officers were injured by flying bricks thrown by the mob. Police then fired smoke bombs to disperse the crowd and arrested 24 alleged protest organizers for disrupting social order, the bureau said.
The market is scheduled to close November 30 to clear space for tourism development.
Traffic around the market returned to normal at about 2 pm Saturday. The market reopened yesterday. Merchants told the Global Times that the police asked them to be cooperative.
On Friday, some 200 merchants marched to the city's letters and visits office, complaining that the relocation will push them to "the brink of bankruptcy." They submitted the collected signatures of 330 merchants who refuse to relocate, the police said.
The market, built in 1989, has 10,000 shops and about 100,000 workers, report said. Zhao Yuelan, a resident who works close to the market, told the Global Times that it is a good decision to move the market out of the downtown area.
"With thousands of people coming in and out of the wholesale market every day, it has been a big traffic headache for years," she said.
A merchant who runs a bag shop told China News Service that the government left them no choice but to protest.
"Each of us has invested an average of 500,000 yuan ($73,000) in the shops, and now they want to close down the market without any compensation. No way!" a merchant was quoted as saying.
"Many people poured all their money into the shops. Closing it without compensation means driving us to the brink of bankruptcy," he said. Some merchants told the Global Times that they have heard nothing about relocation compensation.
Bao Wensheng, head of the Commerce Department in Xishan district of Kunming, told reporters that each merchant could receive a 300-yuan ($43) relocation subsidy. He did not mention other compensation.
Sun Ye contributed to this story
