Hundreds of protesters protest bank closures in a Chinese city

July 11 (EUROPA PRESS) –

Hundreds of people came out this Sunday to protest in the city of Zhengzhou over the lack of liquidity of four banks in a rare demonstration of discontent in the Asian giant.

The protesters had gathered with banners in front of the headquarters of the Chinese Central Bank in Zhengzhou to protest the suspension of installments, supposedly due to an update of the computer system that prevents cash withdrawals since April.

The protest plunged into violence after the attack by a group of unidentified individuals, alleged plainclothes policemen, according to the British network BBC, citing local press sources.

The measure would have affected 39,000 million yuan (about 5,765 million euros) of deposits of hundreds of thousands of people, which has led the authorities to announce a plan to resolve the dispute.

For a few weeks there have been cases of clients of the four affected banks denouncing that their movement had been restricted supposedly to try to avoid protests. They are Kaifeng New East Country Bank, Zhecheng Huanghuai Community Bank, Shangcai Huimin County Bank and Yuzhou Xin Min Sheng People’s Bank.

A protester has assured the BBC that she had traveled to Henan just to participate in the protest and has reported that she has more than 100,000 yuan in one of the affected banks. In addition, she has assured that there are several seriously injured protesters.

“A group of people without police uniforms approached us in a hurry. They hit us hard, especially the men,” explained the affected person, identified only as Mrs. Wang. “There was a man with glasses next to me with all his face full of blood. His head and nose were bleeding. It scared me a lot,” he said.

The smaller-scale protests began weeks ago and on May 23 thousands came out to demonstrate, although the Police intervened to break up the protest.

The public television CCTV has reported citing a high official that the authorities are working to verify the deposits of the clients of these banks. The source has assured that “a plan to resolve the situation will be announced in the near future.”