A 60-year-old Chinese farmer living in Qiqihar in the north-eastern Heilongjiang province, spent 16 years studying the law so he could conduct a legal battle with the corporation that covered his village with tons of chemical waste.

The story of Wang Enlin, who had only the third grade before starting his independent law studies, was originally published by People.cn and then featured by the British tabloid Daily Mail, and is now becoming viral online.

Wang recalls that he was playing cards with his neighbors when their village, Yushutun, was flooded with wastewater in 2001, according to China’s People’s Daily. The man accused the multimillion-dollar Qihua group for dumping tens of thousands of tons of polyvinylchloride into the village, ruining agricultural land and creating a 71-acre field covered with slag.

When he tried to report the pollution, he discovered that he would have to produce evidence against the company and start a lawsuit. After years spent in bookstores, studying legal volumes that he could not afford to buy, he succeeded in his business, overcoming even the seemingly insurmountable obstacle of legal terms, which require a mastery of the Chinese language.

With the help of a law firm, Wang and his neighbors sued the corporation in 2007. In some ways, the case has not been elaborated until 2015, and it was only concluded this year. The People’s Daily reported on 3 February that Wang and the other residents of Yushutun won their first round in court, thanks mainly to the evidence gathered during more than a decade of meetings. The Qihua group has already challenged the decision.

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Source: The Daily Dot

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