ask the truth | four questions about the "forced demolition of orchards" in pingdingshan: what is the compensation standard? why is the revocation document executed?
2024-09-21
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according to media reports, on april 2 this year, an orchard in rendian town, ye county, henan province was "forcibly demolished" by local officials without agreeing on compensation for land expropriation.
the incident has attracted great public attention, and several key issues in the incident have become the focus of public attention, such as how much compensation should be paid? has the compensation execution document been invalidated? did forced demolition occur at the time? why did the work record of the leading government official show that he "started working at the age of 14" and why was it modified?
an investigation team has been set up locally and all key issues are expected to be explained.
one questionwill it be demolished by force?
according to media reports, jia ke, the person in charge of lihua manor in rendian town, ye county, henan province, revealed to the media that his orchard, lihua villa, was "forcibly demolished."
he said that he returned to his hometown to start a business and build a pear orchard after graduating from university in 2014. many years later, the local government wanted to requisition part of his orchard to build a highway. "a highway project crosses the pear orchard diagonally, and it needs to occupy about 7 mu of orchard." however, he had a disagreement with the rendian town government and the ye county government on the compensation standard and could not reach an agreement.
on june 13, 2023, the rendian town government issued a "notice of clearance within a time limit" to jia ke's orchard. jia ke hired a beijing lawyer to file a case in the ye county court. after receiving the notice of hearing, the rendian town government subsequently decided to withdraw the "notice of clearance within a time limit".
jia ke said that on april 2, 2024, his orchard was demolished without any prior notice.
jia ke provided a recording of a phone call between his father and ye county executive deputy county magistrate hu weizhe to a reporter from china central radio and television. in the recording, hu weizhe admitted that the government "demolished" the liyuan. hu said on the phone: "i was present at the demolition (of the liyuan), and the head of the special team and the deputy director of the county people's congress standing committee were also present. we are for the progress of the project, and i am willing to take responsibility. i don't care who you are, and i am not just targeting you. i participated in the demolition because key projects could not be implemented in ye county. that day, as the leader of many demolition organizations, i was not the most senior official."
jia ke believes that his orchard was "demolished". he said that at 7 a.m. that day, more than 100 vehicles of various types and three cranes came around the pear orchard. the orchard was cut off from electricity, and passing vehicles were not allowed to stop, let alone get off the car to take photos for evidence. jia ke's mother, wife, second aunt and grandfather were pressed into the mud because they were recording evidence, and their mobile phones were also taken away. the four people were forcibly carried out of the orchard and locked up in the police station. at nearly 9 p.m. that day, the police station notified him to pick them up.
screenshot of the live video provided by jia ke. photo courtesy of china traffic radio
on september 20, according to a video report by the beijing news, the secretary of the ye county party committee explicitly denied the "forced demolition" and said, "this matter is very clear and there is no forced demolition."
previously, the publicity department of the ye county party committee forwarded to the media a statement with the official seal of the rendian town government of ye county, which mentioned that on april 2, 2024, after repeated negotiations with jia hongxun (jia ke's father) failed, the construction party, china communications second highway engineering bureau, started construction in the planned area with the cooperation of our town government and relevant county departments. jia hongxun's relatives obstructed the construction, and the staff intervened to stabilize and control the situation.
the secretary of the ye county party committee said that "there is no forced demolition." screenshot of our video from the beijing news
second question: how much is the compensation for land acquisition?
in 2021, jia ke learned that the newly built ye-lu expressway would pass through his orchard. public information shows that the ye-lushan expressway is located in pingdingshan, with a total length of about 67.5 kilometers. it is one of the nine new congested road diversion routes approved by the "henan province expressway network plan (2021-2035)". the project officially started construction in june 2021.
starting in 2022, construction workers went to the orchard to conduct measurements, and the government also issued a notice to requisition land, which covered an area of about 6 to 7 mu. however, the two sides have not been able to reach an agreement on compensation.
around november 8, 2023, the relevant staff of the rendian town party committee who was in charge of the negotiation asked jia ke and the highway project to find an assessment agency to assess the occupied orchard. both parties found henan baixin assessment company at the same time. a week later, the assessment company verbally informed jia ke that the assessment result of the occupied orchard was 3.19 million yuan. however, jia ke said that the leaders of ye county did not agree to compensate him according to this result, nor were they willing to pay the assessment fee. the assessment report was left unfinished and nothing was done.
he said that rendian town officials later said they could only compensate him 180,000 yuan based on the standard for scattered fruit trees. this figure was more than 10 times different from the result of the appraisal company, and jia ke did not accept it.
three questions: why is the abolished document implemented?
jia ke said that the compensation standard discussed with him by the rendian town government was based on the pingdingshan municipal government's document "notice on issuing the compensation standards for young crops and ground attachments in pingdingshan" (pingzheng [2017] no. 33), which compensated for scattered fruit trees. he believed that his orchard could be fully identified as an economic forest according to relevant national regulations. the compensation standards of the two are very different.
document pingzheng [2017] no. 33 stipulates that if the land use is determined as forest land in the overall land use plan, and the fruit trees and trees are economic forests, the compensation standards shall be strictly implemented in accordance with the relevant requirements of the "notice of the henan provincial forestry department on adjusting the compensation standards for economic forests on land expropriated for national construction" (yulinjing [2017] no. 2). however, the land contracted by jia ke is arable land. according to this article, even if a large area of pear trees is planted, compensation can only be made according to scattered fruit trees.
jia ke disagreed with this. for this reason, he contacted the henan provincial department of justice. on july 19, 2024, the henan provincial department of justice replied to him that the henan provincial forestry bureau issued the "notice on issues concerning the compensation standards for the expropriation of economic forests in agricultural areas" (yulinjing [2020] no. 167) on november 9, 2020, which clearly stipulated that "yulinjing [2017] no. 2 will be abolished at the same time", so the provisions in the document pingzheng [2017] no. 33 that "only forest land is considered economic forest" will become invalid.
according to china central radio and television, zhang qiang, deputy secretary of the party committee of rendian town, ye county, responded: "compensation can only be made in accordance with pingdingshan city's document no. 33. i cannot explain the response of the henan provincial department of justice."
four questions to the officials involved: “working at the age of 14”?
as the incident escalated, the resume of hu weize, member of the standing committee of the ye county party committee and executive deputy county mayor, was also questioned by netizens. hu weize was one of the officials who arrived at the scene and he admitted to "demolishing" the orchard.
some netizens found that hu weize's work resume on the official website of ye county government had changed, and his time of joining the work was suspected to have changed from 14 to 17 years old. on november 9, 2021, a netizen saved the work resume of hu weize, executive deputy county magistrate of ye county, pingdingshan city. the relevant link reminded that this was a webpage snapshot of the official website of ye county government. the content of the webpage shows that hu weize was born in may 1971, joined the work in march 1985, and worked in the xinhua district people's congress until december 1999. this means that hu weize started working at the age of only 14.
web page snapshot showing hu weizhe's resume (screenshot). image courtesy jimu news
a reporter found that the webpage reminded that this snapshot was only used to verify the source of the entry content. the reporter clicked the "continue" option on the webpage snapshot and entered the official website of the ye county people's government. the page details were still hu weize's work resume, but he started working in march 1988, and the rest of his work resume was exactly the same as the content of the webpage snapshot.
it is not clear when and why the resume was revised. a staff member of the organization department of ye county replied to the reporter that they also did not know why hu weize's time of joining the work changed. the reporter reported the matter to the organization department of the pingdingshan municipal party committee through 12380. the staff member said that they would investigate the matter and report the relevant situation to the leaders as soon as possible. the communication is currently in progress.
hu weizhe's current work experience (screenshot). image courtesy jimu news
after the "forced demolition of orchards" was reported by the media, on september 19, an official from ye county responded to the media that the local government would actively communicate and coordinate with the parties involved. on the 20th, the "pingdingshan release" wechat public account issued a notice stating that in response to the recent online reports of "forced demolition of orchards in ye county" caused by a dispute over compensation standards, the pingdingshan municipal party committee and municipal government immediately established a joint investigation team composed of the commission for discipline inspection and supervision, natural resources and planning, agriculture and rural affairs, forestry, and justice departments to conduct a comprehensive investigation.
upstream news is compiled from jimu news, jiupai news, beijing news, china traffic radio, etc.
