Rare images in China. Several videos circulated Monday on social networks, On twitter in particular, it seems to show protests in Guangzhou (Canton), in southern China. Residents of the city have confirmed to various media that a protest movement took place on Monday night.
A man who lives a mile from where the protest took place told Reuters news agency that “the situation was quite tense last night. Everyone made sure their doors were locked.”
Marrisa, a Guangzhou resident, told the South China Morning Mail hearing screams, then seeing people gather and break down barriers in the street.
A district still confined
Since last month, part of the 18 million inhabitants of this great metropolis have been subject to travel restrictions, due to an epidemic rebound. Haizhu district, home to around 1.8 million people, is where most of the positive cases are concentrated. On Monday, authorities decided to extend a lockdown in effect in most of the district until Wednesday night.
Videos uploaded Monday night and verified by AFP show hundreds of residents demonstrating in the streets. Some, in small groups, break the large plastic barriers that serve to confine buildings or neighborhoods. In other footage filmed in the Haizhu district, protesters attack officers in full white protective suits.
“We don’t want any more evidence!” protesters chanted, while some hurled objects at police. Another video shows a man swimming across the river that separates Haizhu from the neighboring county. Passersby suggest that the individual is trying to escape from confinement.
An inflexible zero Covid policy
Demonstrations in China are less frequent than in the West and, above all, less publicized. But social networks have regularly echoed in recent months scenes of exasperation of the population in the face of the inflexible zero Covid policy.
The latter consists in particular of lockdowns as soon as some cases appear, travel restrictions and sometimes almost daily PCR tests. Many Chinese complain about these unexpected restrictions, which in some cases cause food shortages and complicate access to care for people in lockdown.
Earlier this month, Chinese authorities issued an apology after the death of a three-year-old boy from carbon monoxide poisoning. In a message posted on the internet and later deleted, his father accused the agents in charge of applying the confinement of having prevented him from accessing the hospital.
In April, during the confinement of Shanghai, the residents had confronted police officers who had come to force them to give up their apartments to isolate people positive for coronavirus.
Source: BFM TV
