Protests over the lockdown as a measure to prevent the spread of the coronavirus erupted this morning in Shanghai, universities in Beijing and other Chinese cities, eyewitnesses say, as anger grows in China against the draconian "zero covid" policy that the government has been implementing for almost three years.
In Shanghai, after dawn protests, which the police dispersed with pepper spray, protests broke out again in the afternoon. Hundreds of people demonstrated in silence in downtown Shanghai, a metropolis of 25 million people that was subjected to a grueling two-month lockdown earlier this year.
They waved white flowers and white papers, which have become a symbol of protests against censorship, and went out in silence at several intersections, before the police dispersed them, according to eyewitnesses.
During the night and early this morning, demonstrations were already held in Shanghai, when demonstrators shouted that they wanted the resignation of President Xi Jinping and against the Communist Party of China, in a rare demonstration of hostility in the economic center of the country towards the president and the authorities, reports N1.
Demonstrators gathered shouting "we don't want PCR tests, we want freedom".
Protests have been taking place across China since Friday, where anger and frustration have erupted over the death of ten people in a fire at an apartment building in Urumqi, Xinjiang province, where the public believes emergency services have been slow to arrive due to health restrictions.
One video shows people gathering in downtown Shanghai to pay their respects to the ten people killed in the fire in Urumqi.
According to other posts on social networks, vigils in memory of those who died in the fire in Urumqi were organized at several universities in the country.
Between 200 and 300 students of Tsinghua University in Beijing demonstrated on the campus today, according to eyewitnesses, and videos were published on social networks.
Students waved white papers as a sign of censorship and chanted "freedom will win", "no PCR tests, we want food" and "no lockdown, we want freedom".
Online videos show a large group of students in front of a university canteen and a speaker saying that they have had enough and that this is no longer a normal life.
Vigils for those killed in the Urumqi fire were held at other campuses in the country, including Peking University, which is located next to Tsinghua University.
Gatherings were reported in Nanjing in the east of the country, Xi'an, Wuhan in the center of the country and Canton in the south.
A hashtag related to the protests was censored on the Weibo platform, and sensitive videos were removed from the sites.
One person who took part in the morning protests in Shanghai, who did not want to be named, told AFP that she arrived at the rally around XNUMXam. As she stated, one group of people laid flowers on the street, and another shouted slogans. According to that testimony, there were minor skirmishes, but order and peace were maintained.
The police took away at least two people for unknown reasons, that witness added to France Press.
Authorities soon restricted online discussion of the demonstrations. The phrase "Urumqi road" was censored on the Weibo platform, similar to Twitter, almost immediately after the images of the gathering spread.
Fatigue is growing in China due to the tough policy of fighting the pandemic. Sporadic and sometimes violent protests have already taken place in several cities in recent days, most notably at the world's largest iPhone factory located in Zhengzhou, in the center of the country, and owned by the Taiwanese group Foxconn.
Despite more vaccines available and contrary to the rest of the world, China continues to impose lockdowns as soon as cases of Covid appear, quarantine hundreds of people in centers for those who test positive for the virus and require almost daily PCR tests to access public places.
China reported 39.506 cases of covid today, a daily record, but still low compared to figures recorded elsewhere in the world when the pandemic was at its peak.
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