Calm Said Restored in China Village

A damaged vehicle is seen in Zhushan, a village in Hunan province, after a riot Monday March 12, 2007. A student was killed and at least 60 people were injured in central China when villagers armed with bricks and rocks clashed with baton-wielding police over rising bus fares, witnesses and news reports said Tuesday. (AP Photo) (AP)

BEIJING -- A Chinese activist who witnessed a clash between farmers and police in which one person was reportedly killed has been taken away and warned by police not to speak with the media, his friends said Wednesday, as an uneasy calm settled over the village.

Zhang Zilin, a human rights activist, was among the most outspoken witnesses to Monday's violent end to a protest against rising bus fares by 20,000 residents of southern Chinese village of Zhushan.

Zhang told reporters that baton-wielding riot police beat the protesters _ including women, children and the elderly _ who fought back with bricks and rocks.

On Tuesday night, Zhang was continuing to talk by phone with reporters and other human rights activists when police and officials confronted him. He began shouting "'They're coming,'" and his phone was temporarily disconnected, said fellow activist Wen Yan.

Another activist, Ding Yi, said Zhang told him Wednesday morning that he was being held in an undisclosed location.

"He said he did not have any freedom and had been told by police and government officials not to speak with the media," said Ding, who along with Zhang and Wen are part of an informal network of human rights activists.

Protests have risen sharply across China in recent years as ordinary Chinese vent anger over official corruption, the widening gap between rich and poor, and official attempts to seize land.

On Sunday, in the neighboring province of Guangdong, police dispersed 1,000 protesters in Dongzhou village in the latest standoff in a long-running land dispute, New York-based Human Rights Watch reported Wednesday.

Officials in Hunan province, where Zhushan is located, appeared to be applying standard procedures in suppressing the Zhushan protest, calling in riot police and trying to silence activists.

On Wednesday, villagers said the area was still sealed off and policemen were patrolling the street. Police had put up notices asking people who participated in the demonstration to turn themselves in.

Zhang's cell phone either rang busy or was turned off on Wednesday. Telephone calls to police and government officials in Zhushan and Yongzhou town, which oversees the village, were not answered.

"I don't dare step out of my home," said a villager surnamed Li, who refused to give his name or other details for fear of retaliation.

The official Xinhua News Agency issued an account sharply at odds with that of witnesses who had said a student was killed in Monday's melee. Xinhua said no one had died in the clash and that peace had been restored and "local life has resumed."

A man who answered the telephone at the Hunan provincial government office confirmed the Xinhua report and said the death of the student "was hearsay."

Zhushan's tensions stemmed from an increase in bus fares by Anda Corporation over the Lunar New Year, China's biggest holiday.

Xinhua said upset villagers intercepted a bus on Friday and demanded a discount on the new price.

The operator of the bus company returned to the old prices but "some villagers who were still dissatisfied continued their interception, and a few began to destroy and burn buses," Xinhua said, citing an unnamed local official.

Several villagers also gathered outside the Zhushan police station and threw rocks at officers, it said.

In accounts given by Zhang and other witnesses, demonstrators surrounded a government building on Friday to protest the doubling of the bus fares. The group swelled to almost 20,000 on Monday and some 1,500 riot police were called in.