Agitator for dam rights paralysed after assault

China: Fu Xiancai, a courageous campaigner for the rights of people displaced by China's Three Gorges Dam, lies paralysed with…

China: Fu Xiancai, a courageous campaigner for the rights of people displaced by China's Three Gorges Dam, lies paralysed with a broken neck after he was attacked by thugs on the way home from a meeting with police officials unhappy with his contact with foreign journalists, rights activists have reported.

Fu has lobbied provincial governments and local officials since the 1990s to secure compensation for some of the million people resettled to make way for the 185-metre high dam, which opened in May.

An energetic, engaging man, his activism annoys local officials intensely - after we met in March, I was detained and questioned for hours by police, made to sign a "confession" and hand over my notes and photo memory card.

Last Thursday, Fu was called in to meet Wang Xiankui of the Public Security Bureau in Zigui county in Hubei province, about an interview with German TV, Human Rights Watch in China reports.

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On his way home, an unknown assailant struck him from behind with a heavy object and left him unconscious on the side of the road. The blow was so hard it fractured his neck. He has lost control of all bodily functions except speech. He has been moved to hospital in Yichang, near the Three Gorges Dam, and his family is struggling to find the €8,000 needed for his medical bills.

The Chinese foreign ministry said it had no knowledge of the case.

I first met Fu during a visit to Maoping, in the shadow of the mighty dam. He was summoned by an old woman who could only speak the local dialect and felt her education was insufficient to tell her story.

Soon we were approached by Fu, wearing a suit and carrying a folder.

His own house was knocked down to make way for part of the dam and his new home lay near the site of the old one, complete with portraits of Mao in the hallway. He was keen to show evidence he had gathered over the years, including sworn testimonies by people who had received nothing by way of compensation. They were marked with thumbprints.

The dam has led to a huge amount of corruption - one local official was executed in 2000 for taking nearly €1 million in bribes and scores of bureaucrats have been arrested for graft.

"About 80 per cent of the migrant people I talk to are dissatisfied," he said at the time. "We've nothing against the project, it's a good dam, but we want our compensation."

Fu was resettled in 1996, which was when he started his campaign. "I've been to the provincial authorities 28 times, to Beijing six times to petition the government," he said.

He told me he had been detained just once, for 15 days, in 2001, "but I've had constant pressure to persuade me to drop the campaign".

This pressure has included numerous violent attacks by thugs and threatening phone calls. Funeral wreaths and stacks of fake money used in funeral offerings have been placed outside his home. Officials have reportedly told him he could be sent to a labour camp and his family has also been threatened.

As we left his house, Fu's mobile phone rang and he smiled. "The police know you're here."

Driving down the dirt road from his house, my companions and I were stopped by police and local officials and held for nearly four hours - talking to Fu breaches reporting rules.

We were told to forget about our interview with Fu, whom the officials described as a "bad man" or, on one occasion, as a "non-person".