Zigong - Famous People

Famous People

Since the first century, thousands of pre-eminent people have been calling Zigong home. Among them the most famous individuals are Wu Yuzhang, Gao Ming, Liu Guangdi, Jiang Zhujun, Zou Nian, Wei Minglun, Tan Wei Wei and Kelly Xie.

Liu Zhengyou has been deeply involved in efforts to protect the rights of local farmers, who were forcibly evicted from their land (on which their housing and livelihood depend) without being properly consulted or fairly compensated.

Indeed, in 1993, Zigong officials began to seize more than 2,500 acres of farm land, on which 30,000 farmers had lived for generations. The farmers were offered small living stipends and what they considered inadequate compensation, so they refuse to relocate and organised sit-ins. Police came to the villages many times to “clean out” villagers. Between 1995 and 2005, Mr. Liu Zhengyou, who had been designated by the farmers as their leader, petitioned the government for investigation and review. On April 20, 2005, villagers tried to hand in a petition to the Mayor of Zigong, but were stopped by the police. During the altercation with the police, several villagers were badly injured, including Mr. Liu. Mr. Liu and several others were then briefly detained for “disorderly conduct” and “obstruction of traffic”.

The 2010 Peace Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo wrote that when Liu Zhengyou was kidnapped on April 16, 2006 at Beijing Airport to fly to Geneva to attend the UN human rights conference, it was a trial for the new UN Human Rights Council to see if it's capable of responding to this evident human rights abuse and tell the world whether the reformed UN human rights organization can live up to its expectation or not.