China’s Protest Against Strict Covid Restrictions

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29/11/2022

Written by: Danish A.

Edition: Léandre Saussay

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The Chinese population was outraged against their country’s costly zero-Covid policy, and they are calling for greater freedom.

 

In China, protests and demonstrations were held by the citizens against the strict, but so-called inefficient lockdown imposed by the Chinese government to combat Covid-19. The protests erupted when on Thursday, 24th of November, a deadly fire in Urumqi killed at least 10 people and left 9 injured in an apartment building, after a delayed response from the firefighters. This caused an uproar among the Chinese population, which called out how the strict lockdown measures had inevitably caused the delayed response of the firefighters.

 

The city, which had been under lockdown for over 100 days, was under protest the following day, with Urumqi residents marching and chanting for the end of the lockdown. The following morning, the officials responded that the lockdown will be lifted in stages, although there was no clear time frame nor there was no feedback towards the protests. This failure to address the protests had further enraged the public, causing the protests to spread rapidly beyond the province of Xinjiang.

 

So far, the ongoing protests are held throughout 15 Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shanghai. This rare occurrence of big-scale protests in China was not taken positively by the Chinese authorities, as they tried to suppress and use methods of censorship to stop the people from talking about them. However, that doesn’t stop the world from acknowledging the protests, holding a blank A4 white paper as a symbol of unity against censorship.

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