300 'dead' with stroke of a pen

Hundreds of Chinese villagers in Dancheng, Central China's Henan province, are protesting that reports of their death have been greatly exaggerated after they were registered as dead and removed from village lists.

By recording the false deaths, local officials held back taxes to higher levels of government, but the victims are deprived of newly established medical insurance and pension plans.

The 300 people in Zhouzhuang village - a sixth of the population - discovered they were "dead" when a man tried to apply for a new identity book for his parents, according to a report on China National Radio's website yesterday.