An internal Chinese document shows that a total of 3.1 million people participated in demonstrations, protests, assemblies and petitions in September alone this year, the October issue of Trend Monthly reports.

Chinese people took part in over 520 demonstrations, protests, and other assemblies in September. Over 170 of these protests turned violent, causing the destruction of government property and injuries to nearly 200 law enforcement personnel. Over 1000 protestors were arrested for organizing protests and for violence.

The internal document notes some of the key reasons for the urban protests: lack of proper compensation for unemployed workers of former state enterprises, the violation of citizens’ rights, government corruption, growing social inequality, and government neglect of social justice.

The rural protests have their own triggers. In addition to demonstrating over unpaid wages to peasant laborers, China’s rural population has protested government encroachment onto peasant land, excessive taxation, rising prices of agricultural products, the forced (and uncompensated) labor for construction projects and private entities’ confiscation of farmland.

The document revealed that in Anhui, Hubei, and Jiangxi Provinces, peasants organized themselves to try and even execute repressive township and village cadres.

The document also detailed several large-scale protests.

Over 100,000 miners and their family held a strike from September 3 to September 10 in the Huainan Coal Mine in Anhui Province. The strikers demanded job security and working accident compensation, and protested against corruption, forced overtime, and arbitrary layoffs. The strikers forced over 700 armed and civilian police to withdraw. The miners returned to work only after the city and mine authorities agreed to some of their demands.

On September 17, over 20,000 citizens in Xuzhou City, Jiangsu Province protested around the municipal offices of the communist party and government against official corruption, waste, and power abuses. During the 12-hour assembly, the protestors demanded that the party chief and mayor step down. Provincial leaders went to the scene and asked citizen representatives to negotiate with the government.

Between September 15 and 18, nearly 50,000 unemployed workers and their family members demonstrated against official corruption and job destruction in the cities of Baoding and Tangshang in Hebei Province.

In Henan and Jiangxi Provinces, hundreds of thousands of peasants demonstrated against communist authorities and protested against over-taxation and land grabbing. Peasants prevented local governments from land confiscation by using farm machinery, spears, and hunting rifles. In some areas, protestors looted government warehouses.