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Coronavirus: There Is A Surge In Racism Against Nigerian And Other Africans China

Unknown April 12, 2020

Pushed back from hotels, kicked out of their accommodation, many Africans say they have been victims of abusive discrimination and arrest in recent days in Canton as part of the fight against the coronavirus. Incidents which have provoked strong reactions from African diplomats. This Saturday, the State Department in the United States advises African-Americans to avoid the city

“Give us back these passports immediately.” The altercation between a Nigerian diplomat and the white coveralls of the fight against viral pneumonia in Canton is a reflection of the irritation, not to mention the anger felt in many African capitals.

Summons of Chinese Ambassadors in Lagos and Accra, calls for help from the Kenyan community in front of the Daily Nation in Nairobi this Saturday, and this call from the US consulate advising African Americans to come to the most African of Chinese cities.

The images of these Africans, most of them businessmen forced to sleep on the streets of the Yuexiu and Baiyun districts of Canton, quickly replaced those of Chinese health diplomacy in Africa. Avalanches of comments on twitter: “We no longer want your masks if our nationals are victims of racism in China “, ” we are treated like the virus ” or ” do not use the African community as a scapegoat “.

These evictions from accommodation or hotels follow a statement from the municipality stating that five Nigerians had tested positive and had gone to several restaurants and hotels in the city without respecting their fortnight, leading the health authorities to find and test 2 000 people potentially in contact with them.

The embers of suspicion and the fear of the foreigner being already fueled by the fears of the authorities, widely relayed by the state media, of a rebound of the coronavirus in China linked to the imported cases. Beijing this Friday announced 10 years of banishment from Chinese soil for foreigners not respecting their quarantine, many abuses of racist languages ​​and drawings have flourished on social networks.

Overflows already noted at the beginning of the year, when Beijing proposed an amendment to the law on permanent residence for immigrants. The various testimonies relate the case of owner cutting the electricity to evict the tenants, of a massive campaign of detection of the Covid-19 and of quarantines targeting the African community, some of which have not left the country in recent months.

Others less numerous report the gestures of solidarity of local residents, sometimes other foreign communities who came to support them by giving them clothes and food. ” Since the beginning of the epidemic, China and African countries have always supported each other and have always fought jointly against the coronavirus, ” said Zhao Lijian during his daily press briefing on Thursday afternoon. “ The Chinese government treats all foreigners in China in the same way, insisted the spokesperson for Chinese diplomacy,  and has no tolerance for discriminatory words and gestures. “



source https://www.naijanews.com/2020/04/12/coronavirus-there-is-a-surge-in-racism-against-nigerian-and-other-africans-china/

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