Protesters clashed with riot police in Guangzhou, a city of millions. The protests broke out in the area, a large part of which has been under lockdown for a long time.
In China, protests against strict corona restrictions escalated into clashes between Tuesday and Wednesday night in the southern city of Guangzhou.
Videos uploaded to social media show protesters throwing objects and riot police in white protective suits on the streets of Guangzhou’s Haizhou district.
In one video obtained by the Reuters news agency, dozens of riot police officers with shields advance over the broken barriers. Another video shows people throwing objects at riot police. Later in the pictures, people are taken away with their hands shackled. In one of the videos, a tear gas grenade flies into the crowd.
Living in Guangzhou Chen told the news agency AFP that he saw about a hundred police officers and the arrest of three people in the Haizhou area.
Reuters and AFP say they have secured the location of the videos. Reuters says it has not been able to confirm the exact time of filming, the sequence of events seen in the video or the reason for the clashes.
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Demonstrations across China
Protests against China’s strict corona policy have been held in several Chinese cities since last weekend. According to the Australian research institute ASPI, there have been demonstrations in 22 different cities.
The latest protests gained momentum when ten people died in a fire in a building under corona lockdown in the city of Urumqi in the Xinjiang region. According to the protesters, people could not be rescued from the building because of the lockdown. Officials have denied this.
China’s security apparatus has tried to quickly suppress the protests against the corona policy.
In the city of Guangzhou, the majority of corona cases have been detected in the Haizhou district, where the protests broke out. Almost two million people live in the area.
A large part of the area has been under lockdown since October. Residents have also demonstrated against the restrictions earlier this month. At the time, videos uploaded to social media showed hundreds of people tearing down barriers and taking to the streets.
China is the only country in the world to adhere to the so-called zero corona policy and is still working to suppress the disease. Even small amounts of disease can lead to entire cities being shut down and quarantined. It has made people’s daily lives unpredictable and eaten into China’s economic growth.
For example, Shanghai experienced a very strict corona lockdown earlier this year, during which many of the city’s residents had a shortage of food.
Sources: Reuters, AFP, STT