Chinese disciplinary watchdog to investigate after bank protesters flagged as health risk
- The Zhengzhou commission for discipline inspection says it has started a probe into why angry depositors found their health codes had suddenly turned red
- Meanwhile police in a neighbouring city said they had detained a number of people suspected of involvement in a scam that led to a run on four banks
The local commission for discipline inspection and supervision said on Friday that it had started an investigation and anyone who violated the provincial health code management regulations would be held accountable.
“We will take a responsible attitude to find out the facts and clarify the responsibilities as soon as possible.
“[We will] hold people accountable and order the relevant departments to correct mistakes, responding to social concerns with concrete actions,” an official from the commission said on its website.
Meanwhile, police in the neighbouring city of Xuchang said on Saturday that they had detained a number of suspects in the case and frozen their assets.
In April the police started an investigation into a private investment firm called Henan Xincaifu Group Investment Holding.
China’s small-bank shareholders continue to abuse positions, despite crackdown
The company had stakes in four lenders in Henan province that had their assets frozen amid allegations that the firm had colluded with bank employees to illegally attract public funds.
The police said on their WeChat account that a group, led by a man surnamed Lv, was suspected of using rural banks to commit a series of serious crimes.
“The case was very complex, of long duration and involved many people,” the police said.
The sudden change to the health codes meant that people protesting about the alleged banking scam could not join a protest. Other depositors who did not travel to the city also found their codes had changed.
The saga sparked an outcry on Chinese social media as it heightened concern that the system could be abused by authorities.
It has become one of the most critical things in people’s daily lives as they have to scan the QR code before taking public transport, entering restaurants or even going back home.
Under the traffic light system, a green health code means a person is safe and has not been exposed to risky areas. Yellow codes are for people who may have been exposed to at-risk areas and their movement should be restricted.
People will be given red codes if they are confirmed cases of Covid-19, or their close contacts or come from high-risk areas, and they should be quarantined.
Shanghai outbreak exposes Chinese health system’s fragility
Earlier this week, local media reported that some of the protesters who travelled to Zhengzhou were quarantined and others were sent back home.
The bank scandal was discovered in late April and involved tens of billions of yuan, the equivalent of hundreds of millions of US dollars.
It sparked protests the following month with hundreds of people taking to the streets and calling for authorities to return their money.
Separately it has also been reported that a number of people who bought homes at a now-suspended residential project in the city also found that their health codes had turned red after they reported problems to the authorities.
Some people’s health codes turned green several days after they appealed, but they were not told why their health codes turned red, the report in online news portal Thepaper.cn said.
On Friday the Henan provincial health authorities warned local officials that they were not allowed to use health codes for reasons other than epidemic control and warned against adding or deleting names from the database.
Some party media have also criticised the possible abuse of power, warning that it would affect the health code’s credibility.
Xiakedao, a social media account run by staff from the overseas edition of People’s Daily, said on Tuesday that the health code system had been arbitrarily used for “social governance” or “stability maintenance” purposes in Henan.
04:49
Residents in Beijing satellite city protest against Covid rules limiting acess to Chinese capital
“No matter which department or person is responsible for it, they should be held accountable seriously,” it said.
Hu Xijin, the former editor-in-chief of the Global Times, a nationalist tabloid, wrote on the social media platform Weibo that health codes should only be used for epidemic prevention purposes.
“If any locality tries to control certain people’s movement by controlling their health codes, it obviously violates relevant laws and regulations and will jeopardise the credibility of health codes and people’s support for epidemic prevention,” Hu wrote on Tuesday. “It will do more harm than good for our social governance.”
–
