Heavy police presence and crackdown after protests against zero covid policy

Police presence on the streets. Chinese authorities on Monday sought to contain the historic angry movement seen this weekend ShanghaiBeijing and Wuhan Vs Health regulations Almost three years and training for more freedom.

In unison chants:No covid tests, we’re hungry!“,”Xi Jinping resigns! Chinese Communist Party (CCP), withdraw!“where”No lockdown, we want freedom“. In its scope in the region, the mobilization appears to be the most important since the pro-democracy riots of 1989. It is the culmination of a popular discontent that has not stopped rising in recent months in China, one of the only countries. The world must use a tougher policy.”Zero covid“, repeated enclosures and almost daily PCR tests of the population.

On Monday morning, a police presence was seen in Beijing and Shanghai near the gatherings earlier in the day. In Shanghai, two people were arrested near Urumqi Street, where Sunday’s protest took place. One of the two had “Not obeying our rules” explained a policeman. The officers also removed the others from the scene and ordered them to delete the pictures from their phones.

Beijing: “Our fight against Covid will win”

Shanghai police, despite repeated inquiries, had yet to respond Monday to the number of people detained over the weekend. One of the streets that was overrun by crowds at night is now surrounded by blue signs on the sidewalks to prevent further gatherings. By the Liangma River in Beijing, more than 400 young Chinese gathered and cried for hours on Sunday evening.We are all the people of Xinjiang!‘, police cars were parked and officers patrolled the canal.

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Appears Censored: On Chinese social networks, all information related to these demonstrations appears to have been deleted on Monday. On the Weibo platform, a kind of Chinese Twitter, search for “”.Liangma River“and”Urumpi StreetNo decisions were made regarding mobilization. For its part, the Chinese regime on Monday pledged “The fight against Covid-19 will be won“, the day after an unprecedented scale of protests across China against the brutal policy of “,”Zero covidFrom Beijing.

White cards

The first protest took place in the early hours of Sunday on Wulumuki Street – the Mandarin name of the city of Urumqi in Xinjiang (west), where ten people died in a fire on Thursday. Several posts circulating on social media in China have blamed anti-Covid measures for exacerbating the tragedy, with several cars blocking the narrow alley leading to the burning building, impeding the arrival of help. But this weekend’s protests have led to demands for more political freedoms, including the resignation of President Xi Jinping, who has been re-elected for an unprecedented third term as the country’s leader.

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Many demonstrators protested by carrying placards or white papers with no inscriptions. A gesture that makes it possible to challenge party policy without registering a censored slogan. This did not stop Chinese police from lowering signs or arresting some demonstrators.

“No normal life!”

Between 200 and 300 students from the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing demonstrated on their campus on Sunday, according to a witness who saw images posted on AFP and social networks. Around 11:30 a.m. (0330 GMT), a female student started showing a white paper and joined the other girls, the witness said. “We sang national and international anthems and chanted “Freedom will win”, “No PCR tests, we want food”, “No jail, we want freedom”.“, this witness repeated.

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Online videos showed a crowd outside a university canteen, chanting around a speaker.This is not an ordinary life, we are enough. Our life was never like this before!Another video from the same location showed students shouting.Democracy and rule of law, freedom of expressionBut it was soon removed from the internet.

In memory of those who lost their lives in the Urumqi fire, a vigil was held at neighboring Tsinghua University and Peking University. According to participating students, demonstrators began gathering on campus around midnight on Saturday evening, and the crowd grew to between 100 and 200 people. “I heard people shouting: “No covid tests, freedom”.“, he said, showing AFP photos and videos confirming his statements.

Videos on social networks showed a large vigil at a communications agency in Nanjing (east) and smaller gatherings in Xi’an, Wuhan (center) and Guangzhou (south), but AFP could not verify the authenticity of the images. . Hashtags related to the protests were censored on the Weibo platform, and critical videos were removed from the Duoyin and Kuaishou sharing sites.

Despite multiple vaccinations, China, unlike the rest of the world, continues to have few cases, requiring the isolation of those who test positive in centers and requiring PCR tests — which are required by daily newspapers to be accessible to the public. Places.

Fatigue is overwhelming after nearly three years of strict restrictions. A number of high-profile cases where emergency services have been slowed by health restrictions, with fatal consequences, have sparked public outrage. China reported 39,506 Covid cases on Sunday, a daily record compared to figures recorded elsewhere in the world at the peak of the pandemic.

Three years later in Wuhan

Hundreds of people protested in central China’s Wuhan on Sunday night, almost three years to the day since the world’s first case of Covid-19 was detected in the city.

According to videos broadcast live on social networks and geolocated by AFP, angry residents gathered in the city, where the first case of the coronavirus was detected in December 2019.

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