Hong Kong’s Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy reported that last Sunday, riot police in China’s Wuzhou City in the southwestern Guangxi province, opened fire on 100 construction workers demonstrating over unpaid wages.
The Information Centre said a local hospital officer had confirmed that about 20 people were sent to hospital, including five who sustained gunshot wounds. No deaths were reported. Chinese web sites circulated photos showing workers confronting the riot police before the shooting...According to Japan’s Kyodo news agency, the construction contractor owed workers one million yuan or $US151,000 in wages, but had fled to the adjacent Guangdong province after the construction was finished.
The workers demanded that government come to their aid. Hong Kong’s Oriental Daily reported that they held banners stating: “In the trust of the party and the government to hold justice for us, get our sweat and blood money back.”
As the workers marched on, about 1,000 onlookers joined them. Instead of “justice” from the government, however, more than 100 heavily-armed riot police met them. As the crowd continued to grow, the police fired warning shots into the sky and then opened fire on the workers with rubber bullets and tear gas... The Chinese authorities sought to cover up the incident...It was the second major reported incident in four days in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime responded to labour unrest with brutal police-state repression. On January 19, around 1,000 riot police clashed with garment workers in Wuhan, protesting over the corrupt privatisation of their factory.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/jan2011/chin-j25.shtml