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Beijing: Migrant workers in eastern China rioted and staged protests for three days last week, officials said, vowing tough steps to quell the latest ripple of unrest ahead of the Beijing Olympics.
The clashes broke out in Yuhuan County in coastal Zhejiang province, where dizzying manufacturing growth has attracted a torrent of migrant workers from poor parts of the countryside.
The county government gave a sparse account of the confrontation on a local official website (yhnews.zjol.com.cn) but officials left no doubt they were alarmed.
"This was a grave crime of obstructing public security organs from carrying out their duties and assembling a crowd to attack state offices," a deputy head of the Yuhuan police force, Weng Zhengui, told local reporters, according to the website.
The riots were reported in Kanmen town in Yuhuan on the night of July 10 after a migrant worker surnamed Zhang came to a local law-and-order office to complain about injuries from "colliding with a wall" there the previous day, said the account posted late on Sunday. The report did not say how he collided with the wall.
Zhang agreed to be taken to a hospital by police, but on the way an angry crowd surrounded the police and yanked the fuel pipes out of six of their motorcycles.
"Seeing that the situation was tense, the police decided to first withdraw, but while they were doing so the surrounding crowd threw rocks at them, injuring three police officers," the report said. On the following night, angry migrant workers again assembled in front of the Kanmen police station to "stir trouble," the report said, and again on July 12 a crowd surrounded the station and smashed some windows.
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