Protests in China against heavy COVID-19 curbs spread to Shanghai on Sunday with demonstrators also gathering at one of Beijing’s most prestigious universities after a deadly fire in the country’s far west sparked widespread anger.
The wave of civil disobedience, which has included protests in Urumqi where the fire occurred as well as elsewhere in Beijing and in other cities, has reached unprecedented levels in China since Xi Jinping assumed power a decade ago.
In Shanghai, China’s most populous city, residents gathered on Saturday night at Wulumuqi Road – which is named after Urumqi – for a candlelight vigil that turned into a protest in the early hours of Sunday.
As a large group of police looked on, the crowd held up blank sheets of paper – a protest symbol against censorship. Later on, they shouted, “lift lockdown for Urumqi, lift lockdown for Xinjiang, lift lockdown for all of China!”, according to a video circulated on social media.
At another point, a large group began shouting, “Down with the Chinese Communist Party, down with Xi Jinping”, according to witnesses and videos, in a rare public protest against the country’s leadership.
The police tried at times to break up the crowd. At the campus of Beijing’s Tsinghua University a large crowd gathered, according to images and videos posted on social media. Some people also held blank sheets of paper.
A fire that broke out in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang sparked outrage where residents blamed the lockdown on preventing rescue efforts and difficulty in getting out of the high-rise building. The report indicates the Urumqi fire killed 10 people this prompted the people in the area marching streets calling for the end of lockdowns.
The city with a population of 4 million has been in lockdown for more than 100 days.
