Hundreds of demonstrators and police clashed in several cities including Beijing and Shanghai on Sunday night as China witnessed rare protests over the country’s strict COVID measures and lockdowns.
The latest wave of civil disobedience, first-ever of its kind in mainland China since President Xi Jinping took charge of the office a decade ago, started after 10 people were killed in a fire incident in Urumqi, the capital of the far-western region of Xinjiang, that the demonstrators blamed on prolonged COVID-19 lockdowns.
The frustration among the citizens has mounted over President Jinping’s signature zero-COVID policy that has been continued for nearly three years since the start of the pandemic and has now been triggered following the deaths in Urumqi on Thursday.
On Sunday evening, hundreds of people gathered in the city, holding up blank sheets of paper as an expression of the censorship of protest. There was a heavy deployment of police as well at the Wulumuqi Road, where a candlelight vigil on Saturday grew into a protest.
“I’m here because I love my country, but I don’t love my government … I want to be able to go out freely, but I can’t. Our COVID-19 policy is a game and is not based on science or reality,” a protestor, named Shaun Xiao, told the Reuters news agency in Shanghai.
Meanwhile, two groups of protesters, adding up to at least 1,000 people, gathered along Beijing’s Third Ring Road near the Liangma River during the early hours of Monday and refused to disperse.
“We don’t want masks, we want freedom. We don’t want COVID tests, we want freedom,” one of the groups chanted.
End of tolerance
Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director Hana Young said these protests show people are no more tolerant towards Covid restrictions.
“People have been incredibly patient with lockdown measures but authorities must not abuse emergency policies,” said Young. “These unprecedented protests show that people are at the end of their tolerance for excessive Covid-19 restrictions.”
Step up security measures
On the other hand, Xinjiang Communist Party Secretary Ma Xingrui, this weekend, called for the region to step up security maintenance and curb the “illegal violent rejection of COVID-prevention measures”.