Hundreds of individuals demonstrated against China’s zero-Covid policy on the streets of Beijing and Shanghai on Sunday in a rare display of public outrage directed at the state. The demonstrations took place on the same day.
Many Chinese citizens are growing tired of the country’s strict anti-virus approach, which includes measures such as sudden lockdowns, extended quarantines, and widespread testing.
Urumqi, the capital of northwest China’s Xinjiang region, saw a tragic fire on Thursday, and the prolonged Covid lockdowns that followed have become new fuel for widespread outrage. The government insists the allegations are false.
An unnamed witness at Beijing’s renowned Tsinghua University told AFP on Sunday that hundreds of students had gathered to protest lockdowns.
Students began holding placards outside the cafeteria around 11:30 a.m. The crowd grew steadily larger. They said there are “now around 200 to 300 persons.”
Members of the group screamed, “freedom will prevail” and “no to lockdowns, we want freedom” while singing the national anthem and “The Internationale,” a standard of the worldwide communist struggle.
In a symbolic act of defiance against censorship, the students were said to be holding up blank sheets of paper.
An eyewitness told AFP that hundreds of people gathered in downtown Shanghai on Sunday afternoon, near where a demonstration had erupted just hours earlier.
A source who spoke on anonymity described how demonstrators clutched blank pieces of paper and white flowers and stood silently at multiple crossings before police officers moved to clear the blocked highways.
In a rare show of public resistance to the senior leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. Protesters chanted “Xi Jinping, step down! CCP, step down!” when they assembled hours earlier on Wulumuqi street, the Mandarin name for Urumqi. AFP geolocated the footage after it was widely posted on social media platforms.
An anonymous witness to the unrest in Shanghai told AFP that the first gathering began at 2:00 a.m. (1800 GMT), with some protesters paying tribute to the ten victims of the Urumqi shooting and others chanting slogans.
A video recorded by a bystander shows a big group of people shouting and holding up blank pieces of paper as they confront several lines of police.
There were several minor skirmishes, but the cops were “civilised,” according to the attendee.
They remarked, “It’s shocking to hear that, given today’s circumstances, there are still many brave people standing out.”
Several eyewitnesses reported seeing police officers haul away several individuals.
Authorities moved quickly to silence internet chatter about the protests, erasing relevant terms from the Twitter-like Weibo platform almost immediately after footage of the gatherings went viral.
An undergraduate from neighbouring Peking University told AFP that other vigils were held overnight at institutions around China, including Tsinghua.
He spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation for reporting that anti-Covid slogans had been spray-painted on a campus wall.
There were echoes of a banner strung across a Beijing bridge before October’s Communist Party Congress.
People had begun to assemble at about midnight local time, but he was too afraid to join them at first.
The student estimated that between one hundred and two hundred persons were present.
He reported hearing the crowd chant, “No to Covid tests, yes to freedom!”
His story was verified by the photos and recordings he presented to AFP.
Videos posted online also depicted a large-scale vigil at the Nanjing Institute of Communications, with participants holding candles and blank white pieces of paper.
On Weibo, protest-related hashtags were removed, and on Duoyin and Kuaishou, videos were removed.
Videos of similar protests in Xi’an, Guangzhou, and Wuhan also went viral online. Unfortunately, AFP was unable to authenticate the footage independently.
China recorded a record-high number of Covid-19 cases on Sunday: 39,506. This number is still meagre compared to Western countries during the height of the pandemic, though.
The marches follow smaller, more intermittent protests in other cities and come as public anger grows over China’s “zero tolerance” policy toward the virus.
Public criticism has been stoked by a string of high-profile incidents alleging that Covid lockdowns delayed emergency responses, ultimately resulting in deaths.
Footage partially authenticated by AFP shows hundreds of protesters gathered outside the government offices in Urumqi after the tragic fire, yelling, “Lift lockdowns!”
Using geolocation services, AFP confirmed the footage’s authenticity but could not pinpoint when the protests took place.