People are taking the COVID-19 test in Shenzhen, in China’s southern Guangdong Province, on June 6, 2021. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)
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The Chinese communist regime’s mass COVID-19 lockdowns have sparked public outrage. On March 21, hundreds of residents in a community being locked down in the Nanshan District of Shenzhen for a month protested, demanding their freedom.
One man in the community died during the lockdown. A resident recounted the events to the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times on March 24.
Lin Nan (pseudonym) a resident in Nanshan District, Shenzhen, said that the group protest that occurred on the 21st was triggered by personnel who insulted a female resident with her child waiting in line to be tested. The residents shouted loudly, demanding the lockdown to be lifted. They smashed the pandemic prevention checkpoints and overturned the iron fences that prevented residents from going out.
Lin said: “The conflict started on Monday (March 21). We have been locked in here for a month with little supplies sent in by the authorities. When we were lining up in the community to take the required COVID-19 nucleic acid tests, the testing staff told people to stand closer to each other. The woman with the child asked that should people stay a meter away from each other? The staff snapped, cursing the woman loudly. He said, ‘you all deserve to be locked in, and it’s better that you are not allowed to come out for a few months or even a year. Just like that, a conflict erupted. Angry residents tore down the fences and the security guards rushed in to stop them.”
Lin said that residents stayed there protesting. They demanded that the authorities lift the lockdown. The residents went to the iron gate of the residential complex to protest at 10 a.m. and asked the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) secretary of the Nanshan district to come to meet them to solve the problem. The party secretary finally replied to them in person at 9:30 p.m. that he had a meeting with pandemic control experts and the lockdown would be continued in the neighborhood for 7 more days, despite that there weren’t any infected cases there. “They said there’s nothing wrong with the lockdown,” Lin said.
Lin said that not only did the party secretary fail to respond to the people’s demands to lift the lockdown, he also mobilized the police and threatened to arrest people.
She said: “The secretary couldn’t answer the questions we asked, so he called a lot of police and SWAT team. They blocked our entire street. Because there are more than 600 residents here, they are afraid of us breaking out of the neighborhood.
“The police came in three buses, and there were more on motorcycles. At night, the party secretary said that if we continue to protest, the police would take us away. So we went home, as many people are afraid of being arrested.”
Lin added that the prices in the local area are soaring due to the lockdown, and people can’t go out to work. Some people couldn’t bear it anymore and wanted to jump off the building. Lin said, “Just next door to us, there was a man who tried to jump off the building and was stopped by us.”
Lin also revealed that a neighbor died during the lockdown, and the rotting corpse alarmed other neighbors, but the officials blocked the news.
“The one who died was a 37-year-old man. I don’t know how he died. Many people said that he died because of the lockdown. The community office didn’t tell us how he died. Some people said that he died of starvation; some people said that he died because of desperation caused by the lockdown. No one knew. Some smelled the stench from his home and reported to the community office. And then those staff in white protective clothes went in and took the body out,” she said.
The Epoch Times reached out to those in charge of Lin’s neighborhood at Daxin Workstation of the Nantou Sub-district Office, Nanshan District, but no one answered the office phone.
Zhao Fenghua and Gu Xiaohua contributed to the report.