Hundreds of bank customers in central China were beaten and dispersed by plainclothes policemen, in the presence of uniformed officers, for protesting the freezing of their accounts in a regional bank that hadn’t provided a credible explanation for disallowing them to access their funds. One of the protesters told The Epoch Times they originally gathered in front of the provincial government of Henan, shouting for free withdrawal of their deposits from Yuzhou Xin Min Sheng Village Bank, a lender in the city of Yuzhou. Police asked them to move to a designated location when their group grew to about 700 to 800. However, the petitioners then went to the seat of the provincial government seven kilometers away to seek help. Police had already blocked nearby roads and when they reached the destination they were surrounded by police who used force and stuffed the protesters into buses. Social media posts showed police deleted photos of the protest from the cellphones of protesters. Prior to their release, their ID information was recorded and they were forced into signing a promise to not commit such an act again. The bank declared suspension of online service on April 18 in the name of upgrading internal systems, which fueled anger and protests from clients.
