Ian Johnson, Picking Death Over Eviction; As Chinese fight for homes, suicide is ultimate protest. New York Times, Sept 9, 2013 (top central report in front page)
Quote: "Over the past five years, at least 39 farmers have resorted to this drastic form of protest [such as 成都 唐慧青's]. The figures, pieced together from Chinese news reports and human rights organizations, are a stark reminder of how China’s new wave of urbanization is at times a violent struggle between a powerful state and stubborn farmers — a top-down project [moving farmers to cities, which then expands into the countryside] that is different from the largely voluntary migration of farmers to cities during the 1980s, ′90s and 2000s. Besides the self-immolations, farmers have killed themselves by other means to protest land expropriation. One Chinese nongovernmental organization, the Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch, reported that in addition to 6 self-immolations last year, 15 other farmers killed themselves. Others die when they refuse to leave their property: last year, a farmer in the southern city of Changsha who would not yield was run over by a steamroller"