The peril faced by rights defenders under increasingly harsh official suppression is epitomized by the case of Fu Xiancai, a petitioner for displaced peasants who was permanently crippled by a physical assault in June...Fu...petition[ed] for 1.9 million people displaced and resettled for...the Three Gorges Dam...[V]illagers complained that local factories owned by Zigui County Sibao Paper Company Ltd. and Huafamei Pharmaceuticals Ltd. had seriously polluted the Maoping River, the major water source for the village’s residents. Residents suffered from skin allergies after wearing clothes washed in the river water and complained of foulsmelling air tainted by factory exhaust. The number of villagers dying from kidney disease was reported to have risen dramatically in recent years...In October 2004, Fu Xiancai sent a petition signed by 650 villagers to the relevant United Nations bodies...Fu Xiancai [later] became the target of constant official surveillance, and he and his family were subjected to repeated harassment, threats, assaults and injuries by criminal elements...On...June 8, [he was attacked after] Zigui County PSB security squad leader Wang Xiankui called Fu in for questioning about an interview he had provided to German public television station.