Repression and eviction in Shanghai: residents are forced to leave their homes to be used as a quarantine site

As coronavirus cases grow in China, the measures implemented by the regime's authorities are becoming stricter and stricter. This Thursday the police repressed and evicted residents of the Zhangjiang community, in Shanghai, to use their homes as quarantine places for those infected with covid-19.

Several users shared videos of the tense moment in the Pudong district, where the authorities decided to take several residential buildings to quarantine coronavirus patients.

In the images you can see policemen covered in hazmat suits pushing, beating and forcibly holding residents who resisted eviction. Some videos also see protesters kneeling on the ground begging the police not to take them away.

Other neighbors, meanwhile, remained standing screaming and filming the chaotic scenes that unfolded in the place.

Those who tried to break the police blockades were detained by the authorities.

According to several users of the social network Weibo, who live in the area, the inhabitants of the complex - where about 500 people live - already had parts of the building in quarantine since last March.

But amid increased restrictions due to the spread of the coronavirus, authorities notified them that the quarantine zone within the complex would be expanded, prompting strong rejection and reaction from neighbors.

Weibo users also reported on the social network that the Chinese regime censored much of the videos and images published. For that reason, some shared the images with red squiggles to avoid censorship. “If you delete this, I will repost!” , one user challenged.

“Most cops now don't help people solve their problems, they just maintain social stability,” one person whipped on the social network.

As the regime increases restrictions nationwide, over the past week frustration has been building up in Shanghai, where millions of households have been locked up since March.

The Xi Jinping regime has been implementing a strict “zero COVID” strategy for weeks. All people who test positive are sent to places installed for mandatory quarantine. This dynamic makes it increasingly difficult for lockdown residents to get food, medicine and urgent medical care, which has led to growing anger at the way the country is managing the current resurgence.

China continues to tighten restrictions on record numbers of coronavirus infections despite the mental bill for workers and volunteers who support the confined cities, exemplified by the suicide of an official of the Shanghai City Health Commission.

The official numbers of infections reported by the authorities are the highest in two years: today, nationwide, 29,411 new cases were registered, of which 26,391 are asymptomatic, although Beijing does not include the latter in its counter until they begin to show symptoms.

Only in the eastern metropolis of Shanghai, which is experiencing these days the worst outbreak of the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic in Wuhan at the beginning of 2020, is there today added 27,719 infections, more than 90 per cent of which do not yet have the symptoms required by the authorities to consider them confirmed cases.

However, the emergence of small outbreaks and the fear of mass spread throughout the country has made Shanghai not the only city where restrictions or, directly, confinements are applied.

Confinement is particularly strict in cities such as Changchun (northeast) or the aforementioned Shanghai, although in the latter some residents of the few areas where no cases have been detected in the last two weeks have already been able to go out onto streets where there are hardly any open establishments.

In the eastern metropolis, most of its 25 million inhabitants remain confined.

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