Smartly dressed in a grey suit, crisp striped shirt and burgundy tie, Wang Zhongfa could easily be mistaken for one of the mainland's new breed of savvy lawyers. Yet his callused hands and thickened fingers, some with misshapen nails, tell a different story: of a farmer whose hands are his tools.
But the law, too, has recently become a tool for the native of Huaxi village in Zhejiang province as he prepares to launch a landmark legal case.
Mr Wang wants back his land, which he says was illegally taken by local officials as part of a long-running dispute that erupted in a massive riot in Huaxi last April 10 when 30,000 villagers chased 1,500 police and officials out of the town.
The riot began after police began tearing down villagers' roadblocks in the early hours of that morning, trying to restart deliveries to 13 chemical factories on the land villagers once farmed.
Villagers said the factories were polluting their water and farmland, spreading sickness and causing miscarriages - in 2004, 14 alone in one part of Huaxi where 130 families live. Five children were born with deformities and eight people died of cancer, while pigs and sheep died unexpectedly, lawyers say.
The scale of the riot in Huaxi startled officials all the way from the nearby town of Dongyang to Beijing. Thousands from nearby towns, including the major trading city of Yiwu , went to Huaxi for a look.
