Migrant workers riot in China

Shanghai: Hundreds of migrant workers, angry over mistreatment of a fellow worker, surrounded a police station in eastern China and smashed cars and motorbikes, a Hong Kong-based human rights organisation said on Monday.

The three days of rioting began on Thursday in Kanmen town in coastal Zhejiang province, according to the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.

The deputy director of the public security bureau in Yuhuan county, Wen Zhengui, played down the incident. Zhengui also denied that anyone had been killed in the violence.

The unrest in Kanmen was centered around a migrant worker who was beaten by a security guard while trying to get a temporary residence permit, the Hong Kong-based rights group said.

When the worker went with colleagues to complain to the police, he was detained, triggering the protest in which hundreds of workers converged outside the police station, burning police cars and motorcycles.