Hundreds march in protests against corruption in China

Beijing: Hundreds marched on Sunday in protest against alleged corruption by local officials in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou, multiple participants told AFP, in a rare public demonstration in the tightly-controlled country.

Hit hard by the country's economic slowdown, four banks in Henan province have since mid-April frozen all cash withdrawals, leaving thousands of small savers without funds and sparking sporadic demonstrations.

Sunday saw some of the largest protests yet, with several hundred people rallying in front of a branch of the People's Bank of China in the Henan capital Zhengzhou, according to multiple witnesses who declined to be named.

Protesters were "hit, wounded and were bleeding from the head. Disabled people were also violently beaten," one participant told AFP, estimating the number of demonstrators to have been "several thousand".

Local authorities in Henan did not immediately comment on the protests.

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