A county in central China issued special orders banning public assembly and demonstrations following a riot late last month, according to statements posted on its website Monday.
The regulations, signed by a special task force on social stability in Hunan province's Xiangyin county, listed a series of actions as illegal, including spreading rumors and attacking Communist Party agencies.
It was unclear what type of riot had prompted the local government to reiterate that actions already considered illegal were indeed unlawful.
A separate statement from the county government said that an "illegal minority" had used a confrontation between the villages of Wenxing and Yanglinzhai late last month to create havoc in the area.
They had assaulted government and party agencies, obstructed traffic and even taken hostages, according to the statement.
Local officials contacted by AFP late Monday were not immediately available for comment.
Riots and other unrest are increasingly frequent phenomena in rural China, usually but not always triggered by land disputes.
The number of "public order disturbances" throughout China rose by 6.6 percent to 87,000 last year, according to official statistics.
