In Shanghai, between 500 and 1,000 people gathered with banners and lighting candles commemorating the victims of the fire. Chinese police forces responded to these peaceful acts with pepper spray, and reporters in the Chinese city say some protesters were taken away in police cars.
Xi Jinping’s government witnessed a weekend full of protests by Chinese citizens who rejected the new anti-covid measures applied by the president.
The breeding ground for these protests was a fire that killed 10 people in an apartment block in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, allegedly in large part due to the lockdown ordered by Jinping to prevent the spread of the covid-19.
The protests gradually approached Beijing, until this Sunday they reached the capital with the demand that Jinping resign as the main banner. Other pockets of protests were reported in the city of Chendu, in the south of the country and in more central regions such as Xi’an, Nanjing, Shanghai or Wuhan, where the pandemic began almost three years ago.
The “zero covid” policy applied by Jinping ends up turning against him, causing the discontent of a population that is subjected to confinement every time the Government detects a case of a disease that in most of the world has gone second-guess. flat thanks to mass vaccination and strong health systems.
*Read also: WHO assures that the end of the covid-19 pandemic “is in sight”
“Xi Jinping, resign!”, “We don’t want RCP, we want freedom!” and “Open up, China!”, were some of the slogans of the protesters who protested peacefully with the consent of the authorities in most cases, with the exception of arrests and assaults reported in some cities, such as Shanghai.
In the largest city in the country, between 500 and 1,000 people gathered with banners and a candlelight in commemoration of the victims of the fire. Police forces responded to these peaceful acts with pepper spray, and reporters in the Chinese city say some protesters were taken away in police cars.
Videos posted on social media claiming to have been filmed in Nanjing, Guangzhou and at least five other cities showed protesters grappling with police in white protective suits or dismantling barricades used to seal off neighborhoods.
Protesters in Lanzhou, China, destroying PCR testing-booths during tonight’s protest against the government’s lockdown measures.
Unrest across the country after yesterday’s deadly high-rise fire in Urumqi.
Many universities didn’t open today.pic.twitter.com/RcbOpmAz8c
— Visegrad 24 (@visegrad24) November 26, 2022
The Chinese communication agencies do not report the disturbances, but the recordings on social networks give an idea of the dimension of the protests in the Asian giant.
*With information from Deutsche Welle Y BBC
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