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BEIJING: Hundreds of people took to the streets in Beijing and Shanghai on Sunday to protest against China’s zero-Covid policy in a rare outpouring of public anger against the state.
China’s hardline virus strategy is stoking public frustration, with many growing weary of snap lockdowns, lengthy quarantines and mass testing campaigns.
A deadly fire on Thursday in Urumqi, the capital of northwest China’s Xinjiang region, has become a fresh catalyst for public anger, with many blaming lengthy Covid lockdowns for hampering rescue efforts. Authorities deny the claims.
“At 11:30 am students started holding up signs at the entrance of the canteen, then more and more people joined. Now there are 200 to 300 people,” they said.
Participants sang the national anthem and “the Internationale” – a standard of the international communist movement – and chanted “freedom will prevail” and “no to lockdowns, we want freedom”, they said.
They described students holding up blank pieces of paper, a symbolic protest against censorship.
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A video that appeared to be taken in the same location showed students shouting, “Democracy and the rule of law, freedom of expression”, and was quickly taken down.
Hundreds of people gathered in downtown Shanghai on Sunday afternoon to hold what appeared to be a silent protest near where a demonstration had erupted just hours earlier, an eyewitness told AFP.
Demonstrators holding blank pieces of paper and white flowers stood silently at several intersections, the person said under condition of anonymity.
Videos from the area spread on social media that appeared to be taken in the late afternoon showed a crowd chanting.
Footage from several different angles showed a man holding a bouquet of yellow flowers being dragged into a police car at one intersection as onlookers shouted.