Confinement begins in China’s “iPhone city” after violent protests and clashes with police

Six million city dwellers China of Zhengzhou, headquarters of the largest iPhone cell phone factory in the world, have been confined since this Friday, after clashes between the police and the workers of that plant, who are demanding better wages.

The authorities ordered that residents of eight districts of Zhengzhouin the province of Henan (center), do not leave the area for five days and erected fences around residential buildings considered “high risk”, and checkpoints to restrict movement.

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In the city, no more than a handful of cases of coronavirus.

The order came after hundreds of employees at the factory iPhones of foxconnjust outside the city, protest to demand better salary conditions. This Friday, new images of those marches were released.

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In a video posted on social networks, which was geolocated by AFP, you can see a crowd walking down a street in the east of the citysome with banners.

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“How many people!”, a man is heard saying. AFP was unable to verify when exactly those protests took place.

Dozens of workers left the factory on Thursday after pocketing a pay of 10,000 yuan (about $1,400).. But, according to videos released on the Chinese apps Douyin and Kuaishou, the Taiwanese company banned many of the employees who recently joined the company from going to work.

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Many of these new employees are confined to hotels outside the plant, several workers told AFP.

“We are quarantining in a hotel, and we cannot go to the Foxconn compound in any way,” explained an employee, who requested anonymity.

unrest climate

Another employee claimed that the wage earners who were barred from going to work were promised 10,000 yuan compensation for undergoing quarantine, but had only received part of that amount.

“They won’t let us start work and we can’t go home, Zhengzhou is in lockdown,” One of the troops who were forced to quarantine, in the city of Ruzhou, southwest of Zhengzhou, told AFP.

According to him, other cities in the province are also carrying out protestson a smaller scale, organized by disgruntled Foxconn employees who, like him, couldn’t get into their new job because of the quarantine.

The riots in Zhengzhou They occurred in a context of discontent over the Asian giant’s strict “zero covid” policy. That strategy, which involves large-scale lockdowns, travel restrictions and massive testing, has also dealt a heavy blow to the world’s second-largest economy.

Despite this, Chinaa country of 1,400 million inhabitants, reported 33,000 new cases of covid-19 this Friday.

In the industrial city of guangzhouIn the southeast, millions of people were forced to present a negative test for covid-19 to be able to leave their homes.

In that town, several inhabitants of the Haizhu district dismantled barricades and threw objects at police officers, dressed in protective suits, according to videos posted on social networks and geolocated by AFP.

“What do they do? What are you doing?” shouts a police officer, equipped with a shield, as he and his colleagues try to protect themselves from the projectiles.

Source: Elcomercio

jack

I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.