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In central China’s Henan province, some people woke up to find their health codes turned red. Immediately afterwards, epidemic prevention personnel came to the door and asked them to isolate at home. But many later discovered that it might not be the coronavirus that made them risky, but who they were: activist savers.
According to Chinese media reports, a number of village and town banks in Henan were recently unable to provide cash withdrawal services due to a financial crisis, involving tens of billions of bank deposits. Some depositors were very anxious and wanted to go to Zhengzhou, the provincial capital, to defend their rights.
Many depositors said that their nucleic acid test was negative, but the health code was suddenly assigned a “red code” (indicating risk personnel). Some media interpreted that the measures seemed to be to prevent rights protection incidents from happening.
Ms. Liu, who lives in Zhengzhou (the interviewer asked not to be named for security reasons), encountered a similar situation. She told BBC Chinese that on Monday (June 13), she found that her “Yukang Code” suddenly turned red, and all her nucleic acid test results were negative, and she had never been in contact with a confirmed person.
She said that the epidemic prevention staff then came to the door and asked her to stay at home, but the epidemic prevention department refused to explain the reason for the “red code” to her.
Ms. Liu, who was puzzled, saw on social media that many people who complained about similar experiences were depositors of village banks, and she remembered that she had also deposited tens of thousands of yuan in Kaifeng New Oriental Village Bank, and the bank Also faced with “difficulty in withdrawing money”.
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In China, a green health code is required to use public transport.
In response to the inquiry, the staff of the service hotline of the Zhengzhou Municipal Health and Health Commission confirmed that there was a problem that the health code of the bank’s village and town depositor had “turned red”.
“There is this situation. At present (people) can only contact the community to submit an application, first do two inspections in three days (two nucleic acid tests within three days) and then transcode.”
However, after the reporter asked for further interviews to understand why this happened, the other party refused.
However, it is not just the bank depositors themselves who are affected by the measure.
Ms. Wang, a resident of Zhumadian, 200 kilometers away from Zhengzhou (the interviewer requested anonymity for safety reasons), said that she was taken to the hotel for mandatory quarantine by the epidemic prevention staff due to the sudden red code, and she “has never been to Zhengzhou.”
“I am not a depositor myself, but my father saved money in a village bank, but he can’t get it out now. He went to Zhengzhou some time ago to find out the situation, but when he came back (health code) it turned red, and then we all changed from space to space. Code red,” she said.
“I have interviews on the weekends, and that’s a big deal right now,” she said.
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A social media article titled “Those who commit crimes will be “Zhu” if they are far away: Several rights-defense depositors are red-coded” describes similar experiences of some depositors. The article was widely circulated on social media including WeChat and Weibo on Monday (June 13), drawing angry criticism from many netizens over the practice.
Some netizens accused the authorities of turning the health code into a “good citizen certificate” in the 21st century, while others said that “unrestricted public power is the biggest epidemic in China.”
As public opinion fermented, Hu Xijin, a commentator of the state media Global Times, issued a warning on Tuesday (June 14) that the health codes in various places should only be used for pure epidemic prevention purposes, and “should not be used by local governments under any circumstances. for other social governance goals unrelated to epidemic prevention.”
“If any place regulates the health code to prevent the flow of certain people for other purposes, this obviously violates relevant epidemic prevention regulations, and it will also damage the prestige of the health code and the public’s support for epidemic prevention,” he wrote.
Anti, a senior Chinese media person, said that “the Henan authorities have used nucleic acid codes to serve their debtor banks”, and he believes that “these things are bound to happen.”
“History tells us that once the sovereign exception tool is used, it must be widely abused because of ‘lawlessness,'” he tweeted.
In mid-April this year, many village and town banks in Henan and Anhui provinces, the major agricultural provinces, encountered problems that depositors could not withdraw money, and some banks closed online withdrawal and transfer functions without warning.
State media reported that the major shareholders of these village banks in financial crisis were under investigation for allegedly absorbing public deposits through “fund brokers”. The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission said it had instructed the Henan Banking and Insurance Regulatory Bureau and the Zhengzhou Central Sub-branch of the People’s Bank of China to cooperate with local authorities to “safely handle”.
In late May, hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Zhengzhou, Henan, and gathered outside the Henan Banking and Insurance Regulatory Bureau, according to Bloomberg. People demonstrated with placards saying “Return my savings” but were dispersed by the police.
According to reports, the funds involved in these banks are at least tens of billions of yuan.
Since the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, China has used health codes to locate and track citizens across the country, and forcibly banned people at risk. This had early support from many people, but now there is growing concern that the measure will lead to restrictions on civil rights and invasion of privacy.
In October last year, the northeastern Chinese city of Heihe changed the health codes of all local residents to “yellow codes” in order to prevent the epidemic. The measure even restricted the movement of some Heihe people working in other places, sparking criticism.
As the new crown pandemic enters its third year, the discussion about how to avoid the misuse of anti-epidemic measures is not limited to China.
After the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, the Singapore government has used the “TraceTogether” system to track confirmed cases and close contacts. But in January last year, a senior Singaporean official revealed that the police could obtain any data, including joint tracking data, through the criminal procedure law, causing an uproar in Singapore, and the authorities later admitting mistakes.