Guangzhou, the largest city in southern China, today registered violent clashes between protesters and police, after a weekend marked by demonstrations throughout the country against the ‘zero covid’ strategy.
Videos show protesters throwing glass bottles and metal bars at security forces, who emerge marching in single file, protected by transparent riot shields.
The scenes were recorded in the Haizhu district, which in recent weeks has been the subject of violent clashes between groups of migrant workers from poor rural areas and security forces. The district has been under a highly restrictive lockdown for several weeks as part of China’s ‘zero cases’ Covid-19 strategy.
广州海珠区后滘 补充视频
民众向警方投掷玻璃瓶 pic.twitter.com/lRvmHBwUq5
– 李老师不是你老师 (@whyyoutouzhele) November 29, 2022
Another video shows dozens of handcuffed people being detained by the police.
China has increased the police presence in the main cities, after the demonstrations that took place last weekend against the highly restrictive measures to prevent Covid-19.
The demonstrations were sparked by a deadly fire in a building in the northwestern city of Urumqi. The protesters said that the blockades in the neighborhood, as part of the epidemic prevention measures, delayed the access of the fire truck. The residents were also unable to escape from the building, the door of which was locked.
Yet the protests, on a scale unprecedented in the country since the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations, are only the culmination of months of growing popular discontent.
Under the ‘zero case’ policy, China imposes the blockade of entire neighborhoods or cities, the constant carrying out of massive tests and the isolation of all positive cases and their direct contacts in designated facilities, often in degrading conditions.
More than 1.8 million people live in Guangzhou’s Haizhu District. In early November, protesters in one neighborhood had already overturned a police vehicle and the barriers placed around their residential areas, prompting the intervention of riot police.
Source: TSF
