Workers' rights leaders arrested as number of labor protests grows

At least three workers’ rights leaders in southern China have been detained by police amid rising labor unrest in the country’s manufacturing heartland, The New York Times reported, citing activists and nonprofit China Labor Bulletin. Zeng Feiyang, director of the Panyu Workers’ Center in the city of Guangzhou, was put under criminal detention on Friday on charges of “gathering a crowd to disturb social order,” according to the Bulletin. Labor organizer Zhu Xiaomei and He Xiaobo, organizer of a group that helps injured workers, were also detained. “Clearly the rise in the number of protests and increase in labor activism has got the authorities worried,” said the Bulletin’s Goffrey Crothall.