(Beijing) “Manipulation” and dubious transfers: the police announced the arrest in China of a villainous group suspected of being behind banks in difficulty, after a demonstration of aggrieved savers dispersed with brutality Sunday in the center of the country .
Posted at 9:45 a.m.
Weakened by the economic slowdown, four banks in Henan province have suspended all cash withdrawals since mid-April, taking thousands of small savers by surprise.
A situation that has since given rise to sporadic demonstrations.
One of the most important took place on Sunday in Zhengzhou, a huge metropolis located some 700 kilometers from Beijing and provincial capital of Henan.
According to several participants who requested anonymity to AFP, the rally brought together several hundred people.
Protesters again demanded their money and condemned the inaction of local authorities, accused of “corruption” and collusion with banks, according to images verified by AFP.
Protesters also criticized police “violence” at previous rallies.
In China, this is an unusual defiance shown against power.
“Thugs”
Demonstrations in China are relatively rare, in a country where maintaining social stability is an obsession and where power generally nips any protest in the bud.
Out of desperation, however, some Chinese do not hesitate to take to the streets, despite the risk of arrest and prosecution.
To prevent demonstrations, the Henan authorities were suspected last month of turning the health passes of a number of demonstrators red, making it de facto impossible to travel.
Some saw it as a sign of supposed collusion between the local authorities and the offending banks.
The press was then moved by a potential drift of the health pass for surveillance purposes.
This tool is required in China to access the vast majority of buildings, shopping malls, public places and some transport.
Sunday in Zhengzhou, savers who demonstrated peacefully in front of a branch of the Central Bank, were violently arrested.
In a video verified by AFP, a man with a swollen eye says he was beaten by “thugs” and boarded a bus by the police.
Other images show protesters resisting an onslaught of people in civilian clothes, and throwing plastic bottles.
A demonstrator told AFP of protesters “beaten” and “injured” by unidentified individuals.
“Contagion”
The local authorities did not comment on these events but the police of Xuchang, a locality of Henan, announced Sunday the arrest of a villainous group acting in the local finance.
According to the police, the group had controlled several local banks since 2011 and made “illegal” transfers through fictitious loans.
She also mentions the “manipulation” of bank managers.
The statement did not specify the number of people arrested and made no reference to the protest by savers.
Shortly before the announcement, the banking regulator assured “accelerate” the verification of the funds of four local banking establishments, in order to “protect the rights and interests” of the general public.
The case was highly commented on Monday in China on social networks, despite the censorship of any content deviating from the official line.
Many were the messages of support for the demonstrators.
“Why do you treat ordinary people like that?” “, was indignant on Weibo a surfer, in a representative message to the address of the authorities.
The situation of the four Henan banks is only “the tip of the iceberg”, warn analysts from the SinoInsider firm, based in the United States.
Other banking establishments in China are weakened by a real estate crisis and the risk of bankruptcy of the heavyweight Evergrande which creates a “contagion” in the financial system, they write in a note.