[CND, 01/26/02] Desperate farmers, seven in all, in central China's Hubei province committed suicide by swallowing poison last year due to unbearable pressure from local officials for various fees and taxes, Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday.
According to the report, some village officials detained farmers who could not pay the agricultural tax and took them to mass meeting to humiliate them into submission. (Dong LIU)
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