Dengzhou villager creates fake but effective 'government office' to fight illegal land grabs

A Henan villager, “agonised” by the lack of action on illegal land grabs in her county, took matters into her own hands and created a fake government office there, preventing officials from seizing land from the rural poor.

Zhang Haixin, 46, a farmer in Dengzhou, was arrested last November on charges of forging government documents, after years of quietly working to protect the land of villagers who felt they had nowhere else to turn.

It all started in 2007 when Zhang, frustrated by local officials failing to pay their bill at her restaurant in the rural village of Jiang, complained to the local government. She was told the 6,000 yuan (HK$7,550) debt to her would not be repaid, but rather applied to a penalty she owed for having more than one child.

Her quest to obtain justice for herself turned into an activist campaign on behalf of many other villagers frustrated by a lack of government response to their complaints. She helped postpone a land grab in her village by leading a group of petitioners to the cities of Dengzhou, Henan’s provincial capital Zhengzhou and even Beijing, starting in 2009. Though they never gained a formal resolution to prevent the seizure.

Zhang paid for petitioners’ travel expenses, leaving her family in debt of more than 100,000 yuan (HK$125,000).

Desperate for a solution, Zhang went rogue. She set up her own government office, forging official documents and working round the clock to protect her fellow villagers’ land rights, Southern Weekly reported.

Between October 2012 and November last year, Zhang, claiming to be a secret inspection agent from Beijing, issued forged papers to her village party committee and developers, ordering them not illegally confiscate or occupy land.