Dongzhou is a coastal village in southern Guangdong

Guangdong

Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...

 province, China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, under the jurisdiction of the prefecture-level city

Prefecture-level city

A prefectural level city , prefectural city or prefectural level municipality is an administrative division of the People's Republic of China, ranking below a province and above a county in China's administrative structure. Prefectural level cities form the second level of the administrative...

 of Shanwei

Shanwei

Shanwei is a prefecture-level city in Guangdong province of Southern China, People's Republic of China. It borders Jieyang to the east, Meizhou and Heyuan to the north, Huizhou to the west, and looks out to the South China Sea to the south...

. It is inhabited largely by farmers and fishermen.

2005 Protests

The village was rocked by a series of protests in 2005 by village residents against the confiscation of land by local officials for the purpose of constructing power-generation stations. One such protest, in December 2005, resulted in the shooting deaths of several villagers by security forces; the Chinese government claimed that three were killed, while residents claimed that the number was between 20 and 33, with up to 40 more missing.