China police out in force after anti-lockdown protests

Security services were out in force across China’s major cities on Tuesday, which for the time being appeared to have quelled nationwide protests calling for political freedoms and an end to Covid lockdowns. The country’s leadership faced a weekend of protests not seen in decades as anger over unrelenting lockdowns fuelled deep-rooted frustration with its political system.

A deadly fire last week in Urumqi, the capital of the northwestern region of Xinjiang, was the catalyst for the outrage, with protesters taking to the streets in cities around China.

The demonstrators said COVID-19 restrictions were to blame for hampering rescue efforts, claims the government has denied as it accused “forces with ulterior motives” of linking the fire to the strict Covid controls.

Anger over lockdowns has widened to calls for political change, with protesters holding up blank sheets of paper to symbolise the censorship to which the world’s most populous country is subjected.
A broad effort by police to stop passersby taking pictures of the site of the protest also appeared to have been tapered down, they added, with one officer telling AFP that it “depends on the nature of the photo” but that there was no blanket ban in place.
We are not foreign forces, we are Chinese citizens. China should have different voices,” one woman shouted, while another held a placard mourning victims of the Urumqi fire.

One Chinese student told AFP that he was worried about getting arrested under Hong Kong’s increasingly draconian political climate, but felt the need “to keep up the spirit of resistance”.

And in the neighbouring southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, a witness told AFP they had seen a heavy police presence in Huaqiangbei, a busy shopping area in the city’s downtown, after rumours of protests circulated on social media.

Around 150 police officers were seen within a 500 metre (1,640 feet) stretch of Huaqiang road, they said, alongside scores of black police vans.

Source: eNCA