More than 50 police vehicles from all parts of China were parked along alleys into the district, known as "petitioners' village," as uniformed officers this weekend checked identification and refused entry to the area's main street.

Police were seen rounding up petitioners in buildings that were eerily empty and lacking the usual bustle of mostly rural and impoverished people exchanging stories of rights abuse and government indifference.

"They have been slowly demolishing the village for several weeks now, but they had to finish tearing it down before the Communist Party Congress opens," said a local shop owner who identified himself as Bao.

"What the authorities are saying is that these people are trouble makers because they are bringing petitions to the government and that petitioning is not a harmonious activity."

The demolition comes ahead of the crucial communist congress that opens on Monday and will set the nation's political agenda for the coming five years.

The congress is expected to approve a second term for President Hu Jintao as head of the ruling party and enshrine his political theories, such as building a "harmonious society," into the party constitution.

The closure of the village also comes after more than 12,000 petitioners signed a daring open letter to the government last week, demanding China's leaders to address their grievances and end persecution against them.

The letter also demanded an end to the destruction of the village, which is located near central government petition offices and once had a population of up to 4,000 transient petitioners, staying in crowded and dirty rooms.

From there, they engaged in the lengthy process of complaining, carrying sacks of dog-eared and photocopied documents as they made the rounds of government offices pleading with officials to accept their cases.

Although the activities at "petitioners' village" is in continuation of a complaint system that really goes back many centuries, the authorities seem now to signal their determination to put an end to it, at least for now.

"Police are rounding up petitioners and taking them away. I don't dare go back there," Liu Xueli, an organiser of the signature campaign who was in hiding, told AFP.

"The police have name lists from each province and are looking for the petitioners who have repeatedly come to Beijing or who signed the open letter."

He was unsure how many of the 12,000 people who put their names on the letter had been rounded up, but many of them signed up while they were staying at the village.

China's petition system has long been seen as one of the few channels open to ordinary people to address alleged injustices.

Most petitions concern local government-backed land grabs, police brutality, unfair judicial verdicts, local tyranny and corruption and a bevy of rights abuses.

According to a recent report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch, few of the petitions actually accepted by the government are fully resolved.

"As a system of redress, the petitioning system has generally failed," the report said.

"The growing numbers of petitioners and petitions are too many for the system to handle."

According to official statistics, the number of petitions lodged with the government increased from 4.8 million in 1995 to up to 12.7 million in 2007, numbers that more than mirror China's spectacular economic growth.

According to a recent survey by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 71 percent of petitioners surveyed said they have been harassed and intimidated by authorities while trying to seek justice through the petition the system.

Another 64 percent said they have been detained by police while trying to petition.

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