Since Friday people have held protests across China, where street demonstrations are extremely rare. But anger and frustration have flared over the deaths from a fire that the public believes was caused by excessive lockdown measures that delayed rescue.
— Protesters pushed to the brink by China's strict COVID measures in Shanghai called for the removal of the country's all-powerful leader and clashed with police Sunday as crowds took to the streets in several cities in an astounding challenge to the government.
Three years after the virus first emerged, China is the only major country still trying to stop transmission of COVID-19 — a"zero COVID" policy that regularly sees millions of people confined to their homes for weeks at a time and requires near-constant testing. The measures were originally widely accepted for minimizing deaths while other countries suffered devastating waves of infections, but that consensus has begun to fray in recent weeks.
In a video of the protest seen by The Associated Press, chants sounded loud and clear:"Xi Jinping! Step down! CCP! Step down!" Xi, arguably China's most dominant leader since Mao Zedong, was recently named to another term as head of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, and some expect him to try to stay in power for life.
"Everyone thinks that Chinese people are afraid to come out and protest, that they don't have any courage," said the protester, who said it was his first time demonstrating."Actually in my heart, I also thought this way. But then when I went there, I found that the environment was such that everyone was very brave."
Zhao said protesters yelled slogans, including one that has become a frequent rallying cry:" do not want PCR , but want freedom." In Beijing, students at the nation's top college, Tsinghua University, held a demonstration Sunday afternoon in front of one of the school's cafeterias. Three young women stood there initially with a simple message of condolence for the victims of the Urumqi apartment fire, according to a witness, who refused to be named out of fear of retribution, and images of the protest the AP has seen.
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