Xiamen demonstration today - live reporting on blogs and video sites

PX demonstrations in Xiamen today

In recent weeks, Xiamen resident have become vocal in their opposition to the construction of the plant because they object to the pollutants the plant will emit. Residents complain that even though the construction is not yet finished, they can already smell industrial odors.

• Journalist and blogger Lian Yue has been following the story closely, but his blog is unavailable at the time of writing, apparently owing to heavy traffic.

• Zoula, who calls himself China's first citizen reporter is at the demonstration, and sending live updates from his mobile phone to his Twitter web page. Apparently, demonstrators are calling for Xiamen's mayor to step down.

Zuola has also posted photos of the demonstrations.

• The image of the demonstration above is from this page on Sohu.

• The video below by was shot today and uploaded by 'starflame' to 56.com. There is also a downloadable video of the demonstration on Tsinhua University's New SMTH BBS (no permalink). There is also a video on Youtube of the demonstrators in front of the city hall.
(UPDATE June 2 14:00 - video deleted from server)

• Xiamen University's BBS has no information about the demonstration, probably by order of the university authorities (link not currently loading).

• Singapore's Morning Post (联合早报) has a BBS where people are currently posting reports from the demonstration.

• A popular Xiamen BBS website XMfish.com has a statement on its home page saying that it was temporarily closed on May 29.

• Imagethief has more about the demonstrators use of mobile phone messages to organize, and links to Chinese and Western media reports about the demonstration.

EVENING UPDATE 18:30:
The link to the Flickr.com photos of the demonstration that Feng 37 posted below in the comments has been blocked by the Net Nanny. The rest of Flickr.com seems to be unaffected.

According to a posting on New SMTS, the demonstrators left the city hall around lunchtime and marched to Xiamen University, where they stood outside the gate thinking that students would come out and join them.

But the students had apparently been warned not to take part, and none of them emerged.

According to Zuola, there were still demonstrators waiting at the city hall in the afternoon, but he departed to upload photographs and at the time of writing has not provided an evening update.

UPDATE June 2 14h00:
Videos of the demonstrations have been deleted by Chinese video sharing sites. You can still see some videos by searching for PX on 56.com, but the same search on Youku.com does not have any results. Youtube of course comes through: 1, 2, 3; Youtube copy of Phoenix TV piece about the factory.

FINAL UPDATE:
The best summary of the days events and how the Internet and SMS contributed is by John Kennedy on Global Voices: Liveblogging from ground zero.

ESWN has translated an article from Southern Weekly (南方周末): Xiamen Calls An Abrupt Halt to the PX Project to Deal with the Public Crisis. He also has translated various articles about Chinese Academy of Sciences member Zhao Yufen, who is also a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and has been arguing against the construction of the plant.