Video shows police storming flat used by students backing workers seeking union rights
Fifty student activists have gone missing in southern China after police raided an apartment where they had been mobilising support for factory workers demanding union rights.
Labour activists who were in touch with the group said the raid took place at 5am on Friday in Huizhou, near Shenzhen, in Guangdong province. Activists said they were not able to contact or locate those who had been detained. Video footage of the raid showed police in riot gear storming an apartment and scuffling with occupants.
The group, made up 50 students and five workers, is part of a small but growing labour rights coalition in China’s manufacturing region where independent labour unions are barred and activism is seen as a threat.
Last month, workers and their supporters staged protests at an industrial welding equipment factory in Shenzhen, Jasic Technology, in response to the firing of employees who had attempted to form an independent trade union.
