2015-06-10
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Inner Mongolian herders gather in protest over seizure of grasslands, in undated photo.
Courtesy of an RFA listener.
Chinese authorities in the troubled region of Inner Mongolia have detained at least 17 people following separate protests by ethnic Mongolian herding communities over the loss of their traditional grazing lands, a U.S.-based rights group said.
Protests have recurred in Tulee Gachaa, Mingren Som (or township) near the region's Tongliao several times since early May over the loss of large tracts of grassland to a Chinese-run forestry company, the Southern Mongolian Human Rights and Information Center (SMHRIC) said in a statement on its website.
Local herders have lost access to some 4,000 hectares of their traditional grazing lands to the Xinglonggao Forestry Co. since 2011, SMHRIC director Enhebatu Togochog told RFA on Wednesday.
"The Chinese government's so-called restricted summer grazing policy has come into effect, and they won't let the herders graze their animals," he said.
"They can't pasture their herds on their own grazing lands."
He said the government had sent police and officials to enforce the ban.
"They sent people to the grasslands to round up cattle and sheep, and to fine the herders," Enhebatu Togochog said.
Eight Tulee Gachaa residents detained following similar clashes last month in an unknown location have yet to be released.
They are being detained for disrupting public order, their families have been told, but are being denied any visits, SMHRIC said.
In the east of the region, herders in Zaruud Banner clashed with grasslands management officials in a similar standoff in which one herder was beaten up.
The herder, named Buyan, was beaten unconscious by officials, after more than a dozen police vehicles arrived at the scene of the herders' protest on June 3, SMHRIC said.
Buyan is still receiving emergency medical treatment in the Zaruud Banner People's Hospital, it said.
Meanwhile, some 100 Mongolian herders from Urad Middle Banner in the west of the region marched gathered in the Banner's main town of Haliut in protest last week over the seizure of grazing land for mining.
Video of the protest shows police rushing to the scene and carrying out arrests, during which police detained a herder known as Xiaolong, SMHRIC said.
"We went to petition [last] Thursday," a resident of Urad Middle Banner told RFA on Wednesday. "The police detained [Xiaolong] and we don't know how long they will hold him for."
