In a bid to increase compliance a group of men who allegedly flouted lockdown restrictions were marched by armed police through the streets of China's Jingxi in a "shaming parade". Photo / Twitter
In a bid to increase compliance a group of men who allegedly flouted lockdown restrictions were marched by armed police through the streets of China's Jingxi in a "shaming parade". Photo / Twitter
In a bid to increase compliance, a group of men who allegedly flouted lockdown restrictions have been marched by armed police through the streets of China's Jingxi in a "shaming parade".
Video of the incident showed a large crowd watching the four men, dressed in masks and hazmat suits, each with two police officers on either side.
Their names and photographs were displayed for the crowd to see on large placards, attached to the front of their suits, the state-run Guangxi News reported, and were followed by more police officers in full riot gear.
As they walked, a person on a loudspeaker reminded onlookers to adhere to the pandemic restrictions.
The four men had been accused of transporting illegal migrants while China's borders remain largely closed because of the pandemic – reignited globally by the emergence of the more contagious Omicron variant.
China, where Covid-19 was first discovered in late 2019, has long pursued a strict zero-Covid strategy, using mass testing and lockdowns to stop outbreaks and a vaccine rollout that has seen 86 per cent of the population receive both jabs.
But while case numbers are still small compared with other countries, China is currently dealing with its worst outbreak of the virus since March last year.
The parade, according to Guangxi News, provided a "real-life warning" to the public, intended to serve as a deterrent to border-related crimes.
Jingxi City's Public Security Bureau defended the exercise as an "on-site disciplinary warning activity", with sources adding that there was no "inappropriateness".
But reaction on social media site Weibo – where a hashtag about the spectacle was the top trending topic – and in other state-run media was mixed, with some expressing unease at the parade and its reminiscence of public humiliation sessions during Mao's Cultural Revolution.
China banned public shaming of suspects in 2010 after campaigns by rights activists and the wider public. But in recent months, more than one parade has occurred in Jingxi, with two men marched through the streets in November by police for similar human trafficking offences.
A comment piece on Wednesday in the CCP-affiliated Beijing News said that while Jingxi was under "tremendous pressure" to prevent imported cases of Covid-19, "the measure seriously violates the spirit of the rule of law and cannot be allowed to happen again".
Weibo users said the exercise reminded them of public shamings from hundreds of years ago.
"What is more terrifying than parading the street is the many comments that support this approach," one user wrote.
A worker wearing a protective suit collects a throat swab sample from a resident in Xi'an in northwestern China's Shaanxi Province this month. Photo / AP
The parade came as authorities in central China imposed the country's largest and strictest lockdown since the initial months of the pandemic.
On Monday, the city of Xi'an told its 13 million residents to stay home unless they're invited for mass testing or have a medical emergency.
Prior restrictions meant one member of each household was allowed out every two days to shop for provisions – with the new restrictions drawing complaints that residents will run out of food.
"I'm about to be starved to death," one person wrote on Weibo.
