China: Mass protests by bank depositors for freezing all cash withdrawals since mid-April

Zhengzhou, July 11: Chinese authorities violently dispersed a peaceful protest by hundreds of bank depositors for freezing all cash withdrawals since mid-April in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou.

 

Since April, four rural banks in China's central Henan province have frozen millions of dollars worth of deposits, threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of customers in an economy that is already going through Covid lockdowns.

 

Anguished depositors have staged several demonstrations in the city of Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of Henan, over the past two months, but their demands have invariably fallen on deaf ears.

 

 

On Sunday, more than 1,000 depositors from across China gathered outside the Zhengzhou branch of the country's central bank, the People's Bank of China, to launch their largest protest yet.

 

The demonstration is among the largest China has seen since the pandemic, with domestic travel limited by various Covid restrictions on movement. Last month, Zhengzhou authorities even resorted to tampering with the country's digital Covid health-code system to restrict the movements of depositors and thwart their planned protest, sparking a nationwide outcry.