Wujiang district police in the northern Guangdong city of Shaoguan have arrested an unknown number of people for allegedly disrupting a Chaoyang village election in June and organising a sit-in at local government offices last month.
The Wujiang district police bureau, which oversees the village, declined yesterday to confirm the number of people detained.
But some villagers accused of 'violently disturbing the village election' were among the 27 people arrested on Tuesday, according to bureau sources quoted by the Guangzhou Daily.
Police said the arrested villagers had repeatedly incited other villagers to make trouble in the past few years in the name of fighting corruption by the village committee and protesting against property losses, the newspaper reported.
According to the report, Peng Xianlong and some other villagers allegedly organised some residents to smash the ballot box and tear up the votes in the June election.
Police also said two of the chief instigators organised about 40 villagers last month to illegally occupy the committee's offices for more than a week.
