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Growing Defiance of COVID Curbs in China Brings Wave of Arrests

Commuters wearing face masks ride an escalator at a subway station in Beijing, Friday, April 15, 2022. (AP)
Commuters wearing face masks ride an escalator at a subway station in Beijing, Friday, April 15, 2022. (AP)
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Growing Defiance of COVID Curbs in China Brings Wave of Arrests

Commuters wearing face masks ride an escalator at a subway station in Beijing, Friday, April 15, 2022. (AP)
Commuters wearing face masks ride an escalator at a subway station in Beijing, Friday, April 15, 2022. (AP)

Sun Jian, a 37-year-old master's degree student in the Chinese city of Yantai, for months staged a solo campaign against his university's COVID-19 prevention measures, including blistering criticism on social media.

The last straw for authorities came on March 27, when Sun walked around his campus carrying a placard that read "lift the lockdown on Ludong".

Police detained him and on April 1 Ludong University expelled him, according to a letter from the university seen by Reuters.

University officials did not respond to a request for comment.

The Chinese public have been largely supportive of the zero-COVID policy that kept the coronavirus at bay for the two years after it emerged in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019 and spread rapidly around the world.

But the support seems to be wearing thin as the highly contagious Omicron variant emerges in China, triggering curbs that have brought food shortages, family separations, lost wages and economic pain.

Sun's protest reflects growing frustration and resentment, in a society that generally respects authority, with a COVID strategy that is increasingly challenged by the Omicron variant.

In some cases the push-back has gone viral on social media, with video clips of citizens scuffling with health workers and screaming anger over lockdowns from the windows of their apartments.

Space for dissent has narrowed as China has grown more authoritarian under President Xi Jinping, and the anger over COVID restrictions has created headaches for authorities who have urged the public to make sacrifices for the greater good.

Sun said his university had moved classes online and banned students from leaving campus, receiving packages or getting outside food deliveries.

He dismissed the curbs as unnecessary given what he said was the low death rates associated with the Omicron variant.

"The trouble brought by the virus can't be compared with the disruption from some of the anti-COVID measures taken by our school," Sun told Reuters by telephone.

He said his social media accounts had been blocked.

'Venting off'
Arrests and detentions for COVID-related rule-breaking surged in March, according to the results of a search on the Weibo social media platform for police statements, posts by state agencies and state media reports from around China.

The search found 59 confirmed police cases and 26 arrests for COVID rule-breaking in January, and fewer in February. But in March, more than 600 police cases and 150 confirmed arrests were reported on Weibo, the review by Reuters found.

It is likely that the figures represent only a fraction of actual cases as not every incident makes it to social media or is reported by the authorities.

Public security departments also announced a surge in crackdowns on COVID rule violations in March, with cities and counties publishing 80 notices on their Weibo accounts, compared with seven in January and 10 in February.

Most infractions involve citizens trying to skirt rules such as reporting travels on a health app, falsifying COVID test results, and sneaking out of locked-down neighborhoods.

Assaults on health workers also surged.

Police also reported arrests of citizens who were "venting off dissatisfaction” and using "inappropriate language” related to the pandemic.

As the resentment simmers, authorities are trying to control the public message, often with censorship of online complaints.

On April 5, videos of a protest against lockdowns in Langfang, a city near Beijing, were quickly removed from Weibo.

Last week, Shanghai announced a crackdown on "rumors", threatening to shut down offending social media chat groups.

But pushback from the public can yield results.

Last month, students at Sichuan University in the city of Chengdu forced university authorities to lift a campus lockdown after protesting, the South China Morning Post reported.

State media warnings have at times added fuel to the fire.

Thousands of social media posts used a Weibo hashtag for a report by the official Xinhua news agency about police cracking down on COVID-related misinformation to post criticism of the government's coronavirus response.

By Friday, it had racked-up over half a billion views.

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What Has Assad’s Fall Revealed about the Captagon Drug Trade in Syria?

A Syrian member of the opposition shows amphetamine pills known as Captagon hidden inside an electrical component at a warehouse where the drug was manufactured before the fall of Bashar al-Assad's government at a facility in Douma city, outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Friday, Dec. 13, 2024. (AP)
A Syrian member of the opposition shows amphetamine pills known as Captagon hidden inside an electrical component at a warehouse where the drug was manufactured before the fall of Bashar al-Assad's government at a facility in Douma city, outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Friday, Dec. 13, 2024. (AP)
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What Has Assad’s Fall Revealed about the Captagon Drug Trade in Syria?

A Syrian member of the opposition shows amphetamine pills known as Captagon hidden inside an electrical component at a warehouse where the drug was manufactured before the fall of Bashar al-Assad's government at a facility in Douma city, outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Friday, Dec. 13, 2024. (AP)
A Syrian member of the opposition shows amphetamine pills known as Captagon hidden inside an electrical component at a warehouse where the drug was manufactured before the fall of Bashar al-Assad's government at a facility in Douma city, outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Friday, Dec. 13, 2024. (AP)

Since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, industrial-scale manufacturing facilities of Captagon have been uncovered around the country, which experts say helped flourish a $10 billion annual global trade in the highly addictive drug.

Among the locations used for manufacturing the drug were the Mazzeh air base in Damascus, a car-trading company in Latakia and a former potato chips factory on the outskirts of Damascus.

The factory that once produced the crunchy snack in the suburb of Douma under the name, Captain Corn, was seized by government forces in 2018.

"Assad’s collaborators controlled this place. After the regime fell... I came here and found it on fire," Firas al-Toot, the original owner of the factory, told The Associated Press. "They came at night and lit the drugs on fire but couldn’t burn everything."

"From here, Captagon pills emerged to kill our people," said Abu Zihab, an activist with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the main group now ruling the country, as his group gave access to journalists to the site.

Syria's nearly 14-year-old civil war fragmented the country, crumbled the economy and created fertile ground for the production of the drug. Militias, warlords and the Assad government transformed Captagon from a small-scale operation run by small criminal groups into a billion-dollar industrial revenue stream.

The recent ousting of Assad has disrupted these networks and has given a closer look at its operations — revealing the workings of a war economy that sustained Assad’s power over Syria. Experts say the change in Syria might create an opportunity to dismantle the Captagon industry.

How did Syria build its Captagon empire?

Captagon was first developed in Germany in the 1960s as a prescription stimulant for conditions like narcolepsy. It was later outlawed due to heart issues and its addictive properties.

Its amphetamine-like effects made it popular in the Middle East among both elites and fighters, as it enhanced focus and reduced fatigue.

Assad's government recognized an opportunity in the cheaply manufactured drug amid Syria’s economic turmoil and the heavy sanctions imposed on it.

Captagon is produced through a simple chemical process that involves mixing amphetamine derivatives with excipients to form tablets, typically in makeshift labs.

The Captagon trade began industrializing around 2018-2019 as the Assad regime — and other armed groups in Syria -- invested in production facilities, warehouses and trafficking networks. This allowed Syria to emerge as the largest producer of Captagon globally, with some production also occurring in Lebanon.

Most seized consignments of Captagon originated from Syria, according to data by the New Lines Captagon Trade Project, an initiative of the New Lines Institute think tank.

Evidence of the Assad regime’s sponsorship of the Captagon industry is overwhelming, the report published in May said. The Security Office of the 4th Armored Division of the Syrian Arab Army, headed by Bashar al-Assad’s brother Maher oversaw operations and created a coordinated production system, the report added.

Where and how was Captagon smuggled?

Captagon was smuggled across the border using various methods, hiding Captagon in trucks, cargo shipments and goods. Some shipments are concealed in food, electronics and construction materials to evade detection.

The primary smuggling routes were Syria’s porous borders with Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, from which the drug is distributed throughout the region. Some were also shipped from Latakia port.

In Lebanon, the Captagon trade has flourished, particularly near the Syrian border and in the Bekaa Valley. Lebanese authorities struggled to curb the flow of Captagon from Syria, which analysts say was facilitated by the Hezbollah group, a key Assad ally.

Following the discovery of crates of fruit meticulously packed with bundles of the drug hidden among pomegranates and oranges, Saudi Arabia and the UAE implemented bans on Lebanese agricultural products.

Captagon has also found its way into international markets, reaching as far as Southeast Asia and parts of Europe.

How much revenue did it produce for the Assad regime?

The annual global trade in Captagon has an estimated value of $10 billion, with the ousted Assad family's annual profit reaching around $2.4 billion, according to Caroline Rose, director of the New York-based New Lines Institute Captagon Trade Project.

"Seeing the uncovering of so many industrial-scale facilities affiliated with the regime was shocking but not surprising. There was extensive evidence linking key regime-aligned cronies and Assad family members to the trade," said Rose, whose organization tracks all publicly recorded Captagon seizures and lab raids. The discovery of the facilities, she said, confirmed "the concrete relationship between Captagon and the former regime."

The exact number of factories in Syria remains unclear, but experts and HTS members estimate that there are likely hundreds spread throughout the country.

The future of Captagon in post-Assad Syria

Assad has turned Syria into "the largest Captagon factory in the world," HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa stated in a victory speech at Damascus’s Umayyad Mosque on Dec. 8. "Today, Syria is being cleansed, thanks to the grace of Almighty God."

While Assad and his circle may have been the primary beneficiaries, there is also evidence that Syrian opposition groups were involved in drug smuggling, opposition groups, local militias and organized crime networks manufactured and smuggled the drug to finance their operations, analysts say.

"Likely, we will see a short-term supply reduction in the trade, with a decline in the size and frequency of seizures as industrial-scale production is largely halted. However, criminal actors are innovative, likely seeking out new locations to engage in production and smuggling, particularly as demand levels remain stable," Rose said.

They may also "seek out alternative illicit trades to engage in instead," she said.

In addition to dismantling the Captagon trade, the country's transitional government should "establish programs for economic development that will incentivize Syrians to participate in the country’s formal, licit economic sphere," Rose said.