The municipal Shanwei government in Guandong province defended police who fired on rioters December 6 in nearby Dongzhou, blaming the incident on "a few instigators" who stirred unrest among villagers with "unreasonable demands" of compensation after they had been evicted on land expropriated for power plant construction. The statement, published in Guangdong's Nanfang Daily said had police had not fired more lives would have been put at risk. The statement repeated the official casualty figure of three dead, eight wounded, and listed the dead for the first time: Wei Jin, 31, Lin Yidui, 26 and Jiang Guangge, 35. Villagers have disputed the government's count.