LAND DISPUTE TRAGEDY

A murder over land rights in a village outside Putian, Fujian province, has generated public sympathy for the murderer Ou Jinzhong and outrage over local authorities’ failure to prevent the tragedy.

Ou, who committed suicide on October 18 while on the run, had been living in a run-down shack with his family for six years while locked in a dispute with a neighboring family that allegedly prevented him from building a house on his land. Ou had asked local authorities multiple times to mediate, to no avail. Villagers state that on October 10, Ou went onto his neighbor’s property to retrieve a sheet that had been blown off his roof by a typhoon, leading to a fight that killed two of his neighbors and injured three (including a 10-year-old boy).

Police are still investigating details of the murder, and have not released information on the living situation of Ou’s family or further developments in the land dispute.