Many workers from Shenzhen Jasic (Jiashi) Technology Co. Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Jasic), a publicly traded company, were beaten by company security guards for their participation in establishing a union. On July 27th, a total of 30 workers and supporters were detained. Afterwards, the 15 supporters, who visited the police station multiple times to understand what was happening and to request the release of those detained, were also taken away by police on July 30th.

Workers from Jasic, in order to defend their rights, began to establish a labor union on May 10, 2018, but they suffered retaliation from the factory, district union and police. On the morning of July 20th, Mi Jiuping, Liu Penghua and others, who were headed to work as usual, were first thrown out of the factory by security guards, then beaten by police who rushed to the scene and detained at the Yanziling police station. Before the afternoon, 20 plus workers rushed over to provide assistance but were also detained by the police. Following this, even though all were released, the police’s actions still incited workers’ anger and protest. After a number of days, Jasic workers and supporter groups protested the police brutality outside of the police station. In the midst of the protest, many supporters suffered violent attacks from unidentified persons near the police station. The assaulted supporters reported the incident but the police completely ignored them. The supporters suspect the perpetrators of the violence were criminals that Jasic had employed.

On July 27, approximately 30 Jasic workers and supporters were detained, among them was a Xi’an University student. According to estimates made by volunteers who were observing the scene on July 29, of the 30 people, there were 7 Jasic workers, 22 Jasic workers who had resigned, as well as worker supporters and one Xi’an University student.

In the afternoon of July 30, 15 supporters, who came from all over, rushed to the Pingshan District Government to hand over a public letter but were rejected. Following this incident, they were detained at the Yanziling police station, including the most vocal member of the supporter group, Shen Mengyu, but were released on the same day.

Shortly after 9 PM on the same day, the Pingshan Public Security Bureau’s official Weibo account released a police briefing stating: “Yu *cong, Liu *hua, Mi *ping and other individuals have assembled people multiple times in front of the company entrance, blocking the company factory’s entrance, trespassing into factory grounds and causing trouble as well as seriously disrupting public order. These actions constitute the crime of disorderly behavior. In accordance to the law, the police will take the aforementioned individuals to the public security bureau to undergo an investigation.” This Weibo post was reblogged by the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau two hours afterwards, but by that time it was already early morning in Beijing time. Thus, it can be seen that the Shenzhen police had handled the case the very same night in response to public concern. However, supporter groups continued to gather public support online, and as of now, they have already obtained 1,200 online signatures from people who have joined the support group.