The lockdown in Tibet and forcing residents in Covid quarantine camps has triggered anger among Tibetans, who have taken to social media to express their frustration. The social media posts were followed by massive censorship on social media.
Voice of America reported about videos on social media sites like Weibo and Douyin of Tibet residents complaining about people disappearing into quarantine camps, where they are taken using a bus that comes in the middle of the night.
The report stated: “Social media videos from Lhasa Tibet’s capital show people waiting to be bused at night to an estimated 20 makeshift quarantine camps. For Lhasa residents the ‘midnight bus’ represents their fears of what they may find once they arrive at crowded and locked quarantine sites.”
One of the posts that went viral was an audio recording of a father pleading with a government official at a quarantine camp not to be separated from his one-year-old child.
“We were first brought to this quarantine camp even though we tested negative for COVID. Now we have tested positive, and you want to take away our child. If we need to move again, we want move together as a family,” he said. “If you separate us from our child, I am willing to die right here.”
Leaked footage from the past has provided evidence of the poor conditions in China’s quarantine camps; dirty, crowded, and disorderly. Earlier this year the Chinese Communist Party regime sent the military to separate kids from their Covid positive parents. The kids ended up in unsafe camps, with leaked images showing the kids received little to zero supervision.
Some fear the situation could be worse for Tibet, given the poor conditions in Shanghai, the largest city, and other privileged regions in the mainland. The transportation to the camps is also not safe. Last week, in Guizhou Province, at least 27 people died when the bus transporting them to a camp crashed.
The posts were subject to massive censorship of any content that criticized the government, followed by the shutting down of hashtags that were being used to share stories of lockdown abuse.
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