Beijing CNN –
Protests erupted across China on Saturday, including at universities and in Shanghai, where hundreds of people chanted “Resign, Xi Jinping! Resign, Communist Party!” in an unprecedented show of defiance against the country’s strict and increasingly costly zero-Covid policy.
A deadly apartment block fire in Urumqi, the capital of the far western region of Xinjiang, which killed 10 people and injured nine others on Thursday, has acted as a catalyst for public anger, already that videos emerged that appeared to suggest the lockdown measures delayed firefighters. to reach the victims.
Protests erupted in cities and universities across China on Saturday, with some stretching into Sunday, according to social media videos and witnesses.
On dozens of university campuses, students held rallies or put up posters to mourn those killed in the Xinjiang fire and speak out against zero-Covid. In several cities, residents of gated neighborhoods tore down barriers and took to the streets, following mass protests against the blockade that swept through Urumqi on Friday night.
Such widespread scenes of anger and defiance are exceptionally rare in China, where the ruling Communist Party ruthlessly represses all expressions of dissent. But three years into the pandemic, many people have been pushed to the brink by the government’s relentless use of lockdowns, Covid testing and quarantines. Public anger has reached a boiling point after a series of heartbreaking deaths that have been blamed on Covid control measures.
Anger sparked notable acts of defiance Saturday night in Shanghai, where hundreds of residents gathered at an intersection to mourn the victims of the Xinjiang fire, according to videos widely circulated — and quickly censored — on Chinese social media and a witness
Surrounding a makeshift memorial of candles, flowers and banners, the crowd held up blank sheets of white paper – in what is traditionally a symbolic protest against censorship – and chanted: “We need human rights, we need freedom.”
In several videos seen by CNN, people could be heard shouting demands for China’s leader Xi Jinping and the Communist Party to “resign.” The crowd also chanted: “I don’t want a Covid test, I want freedom!” and “I don’t want dictatorship, I want democracy!”
Some videos showed people singing China’s national anthem and The Internationale, a standard of the socialist movement, while holding placards protesting the country’s exceptionally strict pandemic measures.
Rows of police officers, initially watching from outside, began moving to push back and divide the crowd around 3 a.m., sparking tense clashes with protesters, according to a witness.
The witness told CNN that they saw several people arrested and put into a police vehicle next to the makeshift memorial after 4.30am. They also saw several protesters being grabbed by crowd officers and held behind the police line. The protest gradually dispersed before dawn, the witness said.
Many of the protests have erupted on university campuses, which are particularly sensitive politically to the Communist Party, given the history of the student-led Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.
Around midnight on Sunday, around 100 students gathered around a protest slogan painted on a wall at the prestigious Peking University in Beijing. One student told CNN that when he arrived at the scene around 1 a.m., security guards were using jackets to cover the protest sign.
“Say no to confinement, yes to freedom. No to Covid testing, yes to food,” read the message written in red paint, echoing the slogan of a protest that took place in a Beijing flyover in October, just days before a key Communist Party meeting in which Xi won a third term in October. power
“Open your eyes and look at the world, the zero-Covid dynamic is a lie,” read the protest slogan of Peking University.
The student said security guards later covered the slogan with black paint.
Students later gathered to sing The Internationale before being dispersed by teachers and security guards.
In the eastern province of Jiangsu, at least dozens of students from the Communication University of China, Nanjing gathered Saturday evening to mourn those who died in the Xinjiang fire. The videos show students holding white sheets of paper and cellphone flashlights.
In one video, a university official could be heard warning students: “You will pay for what you did today.”
“You too, and so does the country,” shouted one student in response.
Campus protests continued Sunday. At Tsinghua University, another major university in Beijing, hundreds of students gathered in a square to protest zero-Covid and censorship.
Videos and images circulating on social media show students holding white sheets of paper and shouting: “Democracy and the rule of law! Freedom of expression!”
In one video, a female student could be heard shouting amid the crowd’s screams: “From today, I will no longer perform oral sex because of the power of the state!”