BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese petitioner who travelled to Beijing to air a grievance about a land dispute ended up being tricked into working as a virtual slave at a brick kiln, a newspaper said on Wednesday.
Yang Xiangzheng, 57, sought to solve a long-standing dispute about a land sale with the government in the southern province of Hunan, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.
When Yang arrived in Beijing, he got into a small van after being offered a job and then found himself trapped until he arrived at a kiln in a village in the neighbouring province of Hebei, the report added.
Yang, together with six other men grabbed on the way, was then forced to work at the kiln.
"We were left in a small room ... with two dogs also on the bed. We slept with the dogs," Yang told the newspaper.
"We are not allowed to speak freely," he said, adding a supervisor monitored them 24 hours a day.
"If we talked, he beat us with straps and electric batons."
Yang escaped after about a month when the bosses were taking a nap, it said.
In 2007, Chinese media found at least 1,000 people forced to work as slaves in brick kilns in Shanxi province, sparking public outrage. Similar cases have been reported since, though not on such a large scale.
Police officials declined to comment on Yang's case when reached by telephone.
Millions of petitioners visit government offices across China every year to demand redress and are often treated by officials as an embarrassing nuisance, even a threat to control, despite rules that say they should be given a hearing.
(Reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Ben Blanchard)
