China’s grim coronavirus lockdown expanded Thursday with a warning from the National Immigration Administration (NIA) that movement across China’s borders will be more tightly restricted.
Chinese social media is buzzing with citizens who say their passports were seized without justification by border police.
China’s state-run Global Timesconfirmed the escalating travel bans would block both outsiders entering China and Chinese citizens attempting to travel abroad:
To consolidate China’s epidemic prevention achievements, the immigration administration put Beijing as the priority and said the capital’s anti-epidemic policies would be strictly applied. The administration also required border inspection departments to fully support Shanghai to reach zero-COVID status at the community level, as well as supporting epidemic prevention achievements in Northeast China’s Jilin Province.
The immigration administration emphasized the need to stop COVID-19 entering China through the gathering of stranded people at border points or in illegal border crossings, while keeping ports unimpeded for necessary entry and exit to support economic development.
The railway police are on duty in the waiting room in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. (Stringer/Getty Images)
The regime sought to portray its tighter restrictions as a clampdown on “non-essential travel,” both overseas and within China.
Radio Free Asia (RFA) noted the responses on China’s tightly-controlled social media platform were “terse and sarcastic, yet with a hint of panic”:
“Sure enough, disease control and prevention is a panacea,” @Fangtou commented from Shanghai, while @HeyLucas123 added from Beijing: “They’re afraid everyone will seek a happier life overseas.”
User @Cucumber mixed with coriander 39466 added from Shanghai: “The front door is welded shut, don’t even think about trying to run, just stay in China and have fun.”
And @Libra zodiac sign added: “I feel more and more lately that the pandemic is just an excuse We can’t run away now! First they lock down the city, then the country. We’re the last generation, and we get to watch everyone die!”
China on Thursday announced it would place strict curbs on “non-essential” travel overseas by its nationals, amid a surge in immigration inquiries after weeks of grueling mass testing, lockdowns and forcible mass transportation to quarantine camps.https://t.co/GP8KyfOSYt
The Chinese government on Friday unconvincingly denied a tidal wave of reports on social media that border officials are confiscating passports from travelers, a few of which were quoted by Macau Business:
A Chinese citizen who recently came back from Bangkok by air reported on social media that he saw that some passengers on the same plane got their passports snipped by a border inspector at the Guangzhou port, after being asked whether they would go abroad again.
Meanwhile, some Chinese mainland netizens declared on social media that they were refused to leave the country with their Chinese passports being cut by border officers as well, even if they hold all the required supporting documents for the exit, and a permanent resident ID card from other foreign countries.
Another Chinese resident who holds a student visa to Canada, also reported on social media that when he tried to leave China he was questioned by the border inspectors about what he is planning to do in Canada, and if the Canadian school he registered for will conduct any offline courses. After answering that he was going to take the language class first, with no offline class at the moment, the border officer cut his passport immediately and said there is no need to go overseas if no offline classes are required.
The Beijing Border Immigration Inspection Station indignantly defended its right to confiscate passports, while the NIA contemplated the rising tide of public anger and panic for a few days, then decided to denounce the reports of passport seizures as “disinformation” intended to “undermine China’s [Chinese coronavirus] prevention measures and regulations.”
RFA pointed out it is a matter of documented fact that police departments in several cities were given orders to seize passports from local residents, with a pledge to give them back “when the pandemic is over.”
Chinese officials are also imposing restrictions on moving capital out of the country, giving the strong impression of a dungeon state slamming its doors shut to keep people of means from fleeing its coronavirus torments. Waves of panic buying have been reported in Beijing and other cities as fear of Shanghai-style lockdowns spreads.
The Chinese government infamously worked to undermine travel bans in the early days of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, ensuring the disease would spread quickly around the world. Once the worldwide pandemic was underway, the regime in Beijing spun on a dime and began imposing strict travel bans to protect itself from alleged foreign infections.
Netflix has added a content warning ahead of the fourth season of Stranger Things following the horrific shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children dead along with two teachers.
The disclaimer that will appear during Friday’s premiere will say that the show will contain violent content involving children in the first scene, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“We filmed this season of Stranger Things a year ago,” the warning reads. “But given the recent tragic shooting at a school in Texas, viewers may find the opening scene of episode 1 distressing. We are deeply saddened by this unspeakable violence, and our hearts go out to every family mourning a loved one.”
Netflix Puts Warning on ‘Stranger Things’ Season 4 After School Shooting https://t.co/xgZkQfvSqL
The description for the premiere episode will also include: “Warning: Contains graphic violence involving children.”
The disclaimer will only be shown in the United States and not globally.
A Netflix spokesperson explained that the opening scene is “very graphic” and warranted the warning.
“We decided to add the card given the proximity of the premiere to this tragedy — and because the opening scene is very graphic,” the spokesperson said.
The move comes after CBS pulled the FBI season finale that featured a student involved in a deadly robbery. Beyond television, other artists have adjusted their schedules in the wake of the shooting. “American Pie” singer Don McLean pulled out of singing at the upcoming NRA convention in Houston.
“In light of the recent events in Texas, I have decided it would be disrespectful and hurtful for me to perform for the NRA at their convention in Houston this week,” McLean said.
“I’m sure all the folks planning to attend this event are shocked and sickened by these events as well. After all, we are all Americans. I share the sorrow for this terrible, cruel loss with the rest of the nation,” he concluded.
Musicians Lee Greenwood and Larry Gatlin are still scheduled to perform at the convention as well as Danielle Peck
CLAIM: During Wednesday’s opening dialogue, Jimmy Kimmel said, “There was an armed guard in Uvalde.”
MOSTLY FALSE: On Wednesday authorities tentatively indicated there was an officer at the school, but on Thursday they said there was not.
Kimmel did not wait for the facts.
Breitbart News noted that the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) reported there was no armed school resource officer at the Uvalde school when a gunman entered.
DPS Regional Director Victor Escalon indicated that at 11:28 a.m., after the gunman crashed a pickup truck near the school and began his attack, the gunman climbed a four-foot-high chain link fence around the school and fired at the school as he approached. He also fired at two eyewitnesses at a funeral home nearby. By 11:40 a.m., he had approached the west side of the school. He “was not confronted by anybody” outside the school, armed or otherwise.
Escalon stressed that was no school resource officer on campus, and that the first report came to police at 11:30 a.m.
During his Wednesday night dialogue, Jimmy Kimmel joined the chorus of gun controllers who rejected the role of a good guy with gun based on the false belief that there had been an armed guard at Uvalde.
Kimmel said, “If your solution to children being massacred is armed guards, you haven’t been paying attention to what’s going on.” He then noted that an armed guard was present in Buffalo and mentioned there was an officer in Parkland, although he did not mention the Parkland school officer did not go into the building to confront the gunman.
Then Kimmel said, “There was an armed guard in Uvalde.”
Watch below:
The Texas DPS tells a different story. There was no armed guard at Uvalde.
Kimmel did not wait for the facts.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
Julia Ioffe, founding partner and Washington correspondent for Puck News, found herself in hot water on Wednesday night when she tweeted that 2nd Amendment advocates would suddenly be for banning AR-15 rifles if they were tools used in abortions.
“What if you could perform an abortion with an AR-15? What if the 19 kids killed [in] Uvalde weren’t children, but fetuses?” Ioffe said in her now-deleted tweet.
Twitter users immediately pounced on Ioffe for not only using the horrible tragedy in Texas as a vehicle to plug abortion but also for suggesting that 19 children would suddenly have no inherent value to her if they were killed in the womb – a mad dash of irony that seemed to escape her.
“You’d defend it?” responded National Journalism Center program director Becket Adams. “What even is the purpose of tweets like hers? What good does it serve? Nothing of value has been done on this website in the past 72 hours, and it’s only getting worse.”
“Don’t kill kids at school and don’t kill kids in the womb — in fact don’t kill them anywhere — is my baseline. Is it yours?” tweeted Washington Examiner reporter Jerry Dunleavy.
“Where have I seen this before? Oh, right, on a pro-life t-shirt,” tweeted National Review Washington correspondent John McCormack.
Though Ioffe deleted the tweet, she issued no apology. As noted by Fox News, her statement echoes her flub from 2021 in which she made an inadvertent pro-life argument while attacking the Texas Heartbeat Act.
“If you are anti-choice and you want to make sure women carry every pregnancy to term, why not make the person who created the pregnancy contribute? Why not have men pay child support to the women they impregnate? Surely, it is not the woman’s responsibility alone?” she tweeted.
Indeed, hardcore leftists and opposers of gun rights have (quite oddly) been citing abortion as some trump card against pro-lifers in the wake of the Texas massacre.
“YOU CAN KILL CHILDREN IN SCHOOL IN TEXAS BUT CAN’T GET AN ABORTION,” tweeted Rob Reiner’s daughter, Romy Reiner, which the director himself retweeted.
YOU CAN KILL CHILDREN IN SCHOOL IN TEXAS BUT CAN’T GET AN ABORTION.