The “sanitary” confinement of six million people began on Friday in a Chinese city where the world’s largest iPhone factory is located, after violent clashes between employees and police in reaction to the strict Zero Covid policy applied by the communist government.
Authorities have ordered residents of eight districts in Zhengzhou, capital of central Henan province, not to leave the area for the next five days.
Barricades have been erected around residential buildings considered high risk and movement checkpoints have been established on the streets.
Only a small number of Covid-19 cases have been recorded in this city of 12.6 million inhabitants.
The lockdown comes after violent protests by hundreds of workers this week at the Foxconn factory on the outskirts of the city, which employs more than 200,000 people and is nicknamed “iPhone city” because it is the most largest factory in the world of manufacturing the Apple phone.
New images of protests were shared on social media on Friday and their geolocation has been verified by AFP. It shows a crowd marching down a street in the east of the city, with some people carrying signs.
“There are so many people”, can we hear a man say on this video. AFP could not verify when the demonstration took place.
Forced quarantine
Many disgruntled employees left the factory on Thursday, confined since October due to an outbreak of Covid cases, in exchange for bonuses of 10,000 yuan (1,340 euros).
And new ones, having responded by the thousands to announcements published by Foxconn to be able to maintain iPhone production, were placed in solitary confinement before even being able to enter the site, many employees told AFP.
“We are in quarantine in a hotel and there is no way to reach the Foxconn site”said an employee on condition of anonymity.
Another said those placed in quarantine were offered a bounty of 10,000 yuan in compensation, but only received a small portion of that amount.
“They won’t let us start work and we can’t go home, because Zhengzhou is on lockdown.“, told AFP an employee who was to start at Foxconn, but finds himself in quarantine in the neighboring city of Ruzhou.
According to him, several other demonstrations of new Foxconn employees, placed in quarantine and unable to start work, took place in other cities of Henan.
“Share this!”
Other videos uploaded Friday and geotagged by AFP show angry workers knocking over furniture and swearing at police in the lobby of a hotel in Nanyang, about 280 kilometers from Zhengzhou.
These employees appear to have been quarantined at this facility. In one of the videos, a man challenges Internet users: “To everyone online: please share this!”.
The angry protests in Zhengzhou came amid growing popular discontent over China’s strict zero Covid policy, which imposes repeated lockdowns, restricts movement and imposes near-daily testing on the population.
On Friday, the number of cases in China reached 33,000, a record since the start of the epidemic, even if the figure remains very modest in this country of 1.4 billion inhabitants and the vast majority of cases are asymptomatic.
In the southeastern industrial city of Guangzhou, millions of people have been ordered not to leave their homes without testing negative.
Videos shared on social media on Friday and geotagged by AFP showed residents of this town, in Haizhu district, dismantling barriers and throwing objects at police officers dressed in full white protective suits.