Zhijiang, Hubei

Zhijiang (枝江) is a county-level city in Yichang Municipality, Hubei province. Yichang is probably best known for the Three Gorges hydro project. Until the 1990s Zhijiang was a county. There was another Zhijiang across the river, a city which now goes by a different name.

It is not to be confused with Zhijiang Dong Autonomous County of Hunan.

Lü Banglie

In October 2005, Zhijiang was in the news because one of the delegates to its (county-level) People's Congress, Lu Banglie (吕邦列), a village-rights activist, was savagely beaten on October 8 2005 in the village of Taishi (太石), in Yuwotou town, Panyu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong, by unknown persons. The beating was witnessed by Benjamin Joffe-Walt, correspondent for "The Guardian" newspaper of the UK, who was himself threatened and believed Lü had been killed.

Since 2004, Lü has been the popularly elected head of Baoyuesi village, on Bailizhou (which is an island in the Yangtze River and the only town in Zhijiang not on the river's left bank, with no road connection between Bailizhou and the city's other towns). He is the first elected village head in the history of the People's Republic of China.

The beating may have been intended to prevent a similar popular election from taking place in Taishi.