Chinese officials tie up two women, humiliate them in streets for not wearing masks

China, which has been receiving backlash for its harsh COVID-19 control measures, again managed to irk its citizens. In a recent incident reported from the southern city of Guangzhou, officials tied up two women and left them in the streets for breaking COVID protocols.

Their crime was that they picked up a takeout meal without wearing masks. A video of the incident has gone viral on Chinese social media platforms and shows the women in a visibly distressing situation.

It shows two women sitting in the streets with their hands tied at a checkpoint near the entrance to a residential compound in the city.

One of the women can be heard lashing out at a guard seen in a blue protective suit. The man then pushes her to the ground in an attempt to restrain her. One of the women later put out a post on China's Weibo social media site.

"My friend got a bit emotional, they put us down even though we did not have any physical confrontation...my friend's clothes were also torn apart," she wrote.

"They didn't allow us to call the police...they were violent to us before even checking our health code," she added.

The scuffle started after the officials stopped the women from going back to their apartment building because they were not wearing masks.

The video sparked a debate, with some criticising the women and others slamming the officials for the way they handled the situation. However, all posts related to the incident have now been removed from Weibo.

According to a report in The Telegraph, the local police have launched a probe into the incident. Recently, authorities in Shanghai locked down an entire Disney Park after a visitor tested positive for the virus. All the visitors at the time were also locked inside.

Apart from the theme park, the local authorities also closed nearby areas, such as shopping streets. Several videos and images of panicked people running to the locked gates have also been shared on Weibo.

China is the only major economy in the world that is following the "zero-COVID" policy by imposing snap lockdowns, forced quarantines, and travel curbs.

Last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping indicated that the country has no plans to relax its "zero-COVID" policy, adding that it was the "people's war to stop the spread of the virus."