Chinese on more restrictions and clash with police in Guangzhou

Since Monday, November 7, Guangzhou residents have been subject to the communist regime’s strict “zero-COVID” policies. Some districts, such as Haizhu, are locked down with barricades. The restrictions were tightened by the emergence of 12,000 new positive cases, many of which are asymptomatic, in a city of 19 million people.

However, despite the quarantine measures, cases increased on Monday, November 14, from 1,000 cases per day to more than 5,000, most of them concentrated in the district of Haizhu, an important textile center.

Chinese social networks showed videos of hundreds of residents protesting in Haizhu on Monday night, breaking through barricades blocking their way and destroying checkpoints, while marching angrily through the streets of the district.

According to some testimonies gathered by SCMP, the residents who came out to protest were migrant workers who did not want to comply with the local measures. The recent restrictions ordered contract employees to return home. Local textile industry associations were negotiating to allow workers from Hubei to return.

CTWANT posted a video on its YouTube account showing angry residents breaking through barricades and marching through the streets. The video shows a group of people angrily overturning a police van, then police appeared with water cannons to disperse the crowd.

According to social media videos, the protests not only occurred in the textile center of Haizhu district but in other neighborhoods such as Kangle and Datang.

Twitter netizens further showed the outrage of Chinese residents. One user posted screenshots of a neighborhood chat in Haizhu district. The neighbors were concerned that a pregnant resident needed medical attention and could not leave her apartment because it was blocked.

Radio Free Asia published that local authorities blocked off the city of Guangzhou to control the protests. “On Monday night, many people in Guangzhou protested against the strict shutdown measures, including Datang in Haizhu district, Kangle village near Zhongda clothing market and Tangxia community in Tianhe district. Some factory workers were unhappy with the shortage of supplies and broke through the defense line to attack the police car,” said the Chinese-language tweet automatically translated by an online translator.

Pregnant woman presumed unable to rush to hospital

Internet users commented that a pregnant woman was in urgent need of medical attention and that the lockdowns prevented her from going to the hospital.

On Twitter, one user posted a video showing a woman receiving CPR by paramedics. The netizen, Wanjun Xie, tweeted, “Guangzhou Haizhu, a pregnant woman was locked in her house and was not allowed to go to the hospital when she gave birth. As a result, both the pregnant woman and her baby died, causing a public riot!”

In the video, a person is seen lying on the ground next to a parked ambulance, and three medical attendants were giving first aid. There was a lot of blood on the ground and people were watching. Another segment of the video shows a large number of people on the streets, some were shouting, some were booing, some people were angry and throwing things at the pandemic workers. Then, the police officers wanted to force the gates to enter the community, the citizens were trying to resist, but finally they were dispersed with high pressure water cannons. There are also videos showing that a citizen was detained by police, the resident had his hands behind his back.

Netizen “Anonymous ZX۵” tweeted, “Haizhu District, Guangzhou, on 11.14 Beijing time, people stood up to resist tyranny! Remember, this is not a riot of the people, this is to defend human rights! For freedom and democracy! To blame the incident on the Chinese Communist Party. The implementation of pandemic prevention and control has resulted in women who are about to become pregnant not being able to go to the hospital to give birth and die at home! This is an evil tyranny!”

Another user said, “It’s not a riot, it’s a struggle for civil rights. The officials force people to revolt, and no matter how stupid the citizens are, one day they will wake up.”

The pandemic started in China in late 2019, the Chinese Communist Party was the first regime in the world to impose quarantines and quarantine centers were built in 3 days. In addition they separated entire families from their young children for days to comply with its COVID policies. These recent protests clearly reveal that the Chinese people are on edge.