China detains 100 for riot in southwestern town

A resident walks past the burnt-out local public security bureau, which was set ablaze and ransacked on June 28, in Weng'an county, Guizhou province, July 2, 2008.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Police in southwest China have detained 100 people, including 39 gang members, for their roles in a riot last month that saw the torching of government buildings and official cars, state media said on Monday.

The violent protest brought 30,000 residents on to the streets of Weng'an, in Guizhou province, in an unnerving outburst of discontent as China prepares to host the Olympic Games in August.

Crowds stormed police and government headquarters on June 28 after allegations spread that police had covered up the rape and murder of a local teenage girl, seeking to protect the son of a local official.

Forensic experts have conducted three autopsies on the 16-year-old victim, Li Shufen, and have repeatedly ruled out the possibility of sexual assault or murder, saying she died by drowning.

Of the 355 people identified by police as being involved in the violence, 100 had been put under "criminal detention", the official Guizhou Daily newspaper said in a report on its website (gzrb.gog.com.cn).

At least 90 gang members had taken part in the riot and 39 of them had been detained, the report said, quoting Guizhou's vice police chief.

"Police urge the (June 28) law breakers to turn themselves in ... and encourage residents to tip police off (on the whereabouts of those still at large)," it said.

China, with its vast and poor rural population, sees many thousands of protests and what officials call "mass incidents" every year. But in the build-up to the Beijing Olympics, authorities want to stamp out any signs of unrest.

Weng'an had long been a powder-keg of corruption, unchecked crime gangs and public anger, the area's former police chief, who lost his job over the riot and poor policing years before that, said in an interview with Chinese media last week.

Provincial officials have also sacked the Communist Party chief and county mayor of Weng'an.

They said the riot was inevitable with so much popular anger at the government built up under their watch even if there were no crime gangs involved in the melee.

(Reporting by Guo Shipeng and Chris Buckley; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)