Zhijiang, Hubei
Encyclopedia
Zhijiang is a county-level city in Yichang
Yichang
Yichang is a prefecture-level city located in Hubei province of the People's Republic of China. It is the second largest city in Hubei province after the province capital, Wuhan. The Three Gorges Dam is located within its administrative area, in Yiling District.-History:In ancient times Yichang...

 Municipality, Hubei
Hubei
' Hupeh) is a province in Central China. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Lake Dongting...

 province. Yichang is probably best known for the Three Gorges hydro project. Until the 1990s Zhijiang was a county. There was another Zhijiang across the river, a city which now goes by a different name.

It is not to be confused with Zhijiang Dong Autonomous County
Zhijiang Dong Autonomous County
Zhijiang Dong Autonomous County is a county of Hunan, China. It is under the administration of Huaihua city.-References:*...

 of Hunan
Hunan
' is a province of South-Central China, located to the south of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting...

.

Lü Banglie

In October 2005, Zhijiang was in the news because one of the delegates to its (county-level) People's Congress, Lu Banglie
Lu Banglie
Lu Banglie is a pro-democracy activist in China. Lu is a farmer from Baoyuesi village in Hubei province. During a period of drought in 2000, Lu began campaigning for reductions in the taxes levied upon poor farmers. Since that time Lu has campaigned on issues of land seizures, corruption, and...

 (吕邦列), a village-rights activist, was savagely beaten on October 8, 2005 in the village of Taishi (太石), in Yuwotou town, Panyu
Panyu
Panyu District or Pun Yue District is a district in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China. It used to be a county-level city before it was incorporated in the administration of Guangzhou. The name of Panyu dates back to the completion of the conquest of Guangdong by Qin Shi Huang. It was the old name of...

 District, Guangzhou
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...

, Guangdong
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...

, by unknown persons. The beating was witnessed by Benjamin Joffe-Walt, correspondent for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

newspaper of the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, who was himself threatened and believed Lü had been killed.

Since 2004, Lü has been the popularly elected head of Baoyuesi village, on Bailizhou (which is an island in the Yangtze River
Yangtze River
The Yangtze, Yangzi or Cháng Jiāng is the longest river in Asia, and the third-longest in the world. It flows for from the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai eastward across southwest, central and eastern China before emptying into the East China Sea at Shanghai. It is also one of the...

 and the only town in Zhijiang not on the river's left bank, with no road connection between Bailizhou and the city's other towns). He is the first elected village head in the history of the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

.

The beating may have been intended to prevent a similar popular election from taking place in Taishi.
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