CHINA:The residents of Huaxi, a village in eastern China that fought the law in 2005 over damage to their health and environment and won, are celebrating the election of two of their own - an environmental activist and a popular village official, to a local congress.
The Communist Party is the only organisation permitted to govern in China, but it has permitted limited democracy to decide on local representatives to town congresses and councils.
Huaxi hit the headlines in April 2005, when 1,500 police took on thousands of villagers trying to block deliveries to and from 13 chemical plants in the village centre.
The police were forced out and the scene after the riot was one of overturned cars and police uniforms hung on barricades as trophies. There was a general air of euphoria, of possibility.
The town became legendary in China's fledgling environmental movement and the riot kicked off a wave of demonstrations against pollution and land grabs by corrupt cadres.
Growing industrialisation in China has led to clashes between authorities and the dispossessed left behind by development - the farmers and migrant workers who make up two-thirds of China's 1.3 billion people.
In the Huaxi election, about 1,500 villagers had voting rights and they used them to elect a man who has worked hard to highlight their plight over the years, environmental activist Wang Zhongfa.
Mr Wang has struggled for years to stop the factories and was jailed several years ago for damaging machinery in the plants when they were built in 2001. He won more than 800 votes.
"The election in Huaxi village was intense. My slogan was, speak for the normal masses and purify the environment," said Mr Wang.
He was in police custody at the time of the riots and unable to take part. Had he been there he would almost certainly be in jail.
The local election was an intense affair. In the run-up to the poll on January 15th, the other challenger, Wang Huitian, a popular local representative, and his wife were walking through Huaxi when they were set upon by a group of men.
Wang Huitian was slightly hurt but his wife was taken to hospital in nearby Dongyang with serious injuries.
"I can't identify the people who attacked my wife, because I have no evidence," said Mr Wang, who went on to win his seat. "They took it out on my wife, but it's aimed at me. Their message was: don't come out, don't try to be an NPC representative."
His wife, who suffered serious head injuries, was unconscious for four days in hospital, where she remains.
"She's fine now and will come home soon, but I feel so insecure I'd almost prefer her to stay in hospital," her husband said.
Wang is a common surname - more than one third of the population has the name - and often when people are detained in Huaxi or nearby Dongyang, they will give their name as Wang.
After the assault, which is being blamed on a mob hired by a former councillor, scores of villagers surrounded the police station demanding action. There were scuffles when police tried to disperse the crowd, say witnesses.
The 2005 Huaxi riots took place after authorities came to destroy roadblocks erected by villagers to block deliveries to and from the factories. The locals said the factories were poisoning their crops, causing miscarriages and making their children sick.
According to the state-run China Daily, at least 2.5 million farmers nationwide are losing more than 400,000 acres of land a year to rapidly growing cities.
The villagers won the battle but lost the war - nine of them, all protesting their innocence, were sent to jail.
Local officials were given light punishments or moved. The former party secretary of Dongyang city, Tang Yong, which is the nearest administrative centre to Huaxi, was sacked over the environment scandal, but was recently appointed as vice-party secretary of Zhejiang Forestry University.
"Of all the candidates, I'm the only one with no background in government," said Mr Wang, the environmentalist. "The other candidates could make sure of administrative power to campaign, but not me. But all the villagers know me and many old women volunteered to canvass votes for me.
"Now I'm elected, I have handed in a proposal to clean up the environment of the chemical industry zone. Although the factories have all moved out, some pollutants have not been completely cleaned up," he said.