During the Occupy Movement in Hong Kong in 2014, protesters were reportedly beaten up by unidentified thugs from neighbouring Guangdong province in China. In 2012, local authorities hired scores of thugs to lock up the blind activist Chen Guangcheng in order to keep him out of the public eye. Local governments also work with professional intermediaries to convince aggrieved citizens to give up their resistance against the state, and engage private security personnel to intercept petitioners heading to Beijing.
