Shanghai protesters, police jostle as anger over China's COVID curbs mounts

[emily]

Shanghai protesters, police jostle as anger over China's COVID curbs mounts

SHANGHAI/BEIJING, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Hundreds of demonstrators in Shanghai shouted and jostled with police on Sunday evening as protests over China's stringent COVID restrictions flared for a third day following a deadly apartment fire in the country's far west.

The wave of civil disobedience, which has spread to other cities including Beijing, is unprecedented in mainland China since President Xi Jinping assumed power a decade ago and comes amid mounting frustration over his signature zero-COVID policy.

The fire at a residential high-rise building in the city of Urumqi triggered protests after videos of the incident posted on social media led to accusations that lockdown were a factor in the death toll.

Urumqi officials abruptly held a news conference in the early hours of Saturday to deny COVID measures had hampered escape and rescue. Many of Urumqi's 4 million residents have been under some of the country's longest lockdowns, barred from leaving their homes for as long as 100 days.

On Sunday in Shanghai, police kept a heavy presence on Wulumuqi Road, which is named after Urumqi, and where a candlelight vigil the day before turned into protests.
By evening hundreds of people gathered in the area.

Some jostled with police trying to disperse them. People held up blank sheets of paper as an expression of protest.

One Reuters witness saw at least seven people taken away by police.

URUMQI, BEIJING, WUHAN

On Sunday at Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University, dozens of people held a peaceful protest against COVID restrictions during which they sang the national anthem, according to images and videos posted on social media.

One student who saw the Tsinghua protest described to Reuters feeling taken aback by the protest at one China's most elite universities, and Xi's alma mater.

"People there were very passionate, the sight of it was impressive," the student said, declining to be named given the sensitivity of the matter.

In the central city of Wuhan, where the pandemic began three years ago, hundreds of residents took to the streets on Sunday, smashing through metal barricades, overturning COVID testing tents and demanding an end to lockdowns, according to videos on social media that could not be independently verified.

Thursday's fire that killed 10 people in an apartment block in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang region, saw crowds there take to the street on Friday evening, chanting "End the lockdown!" and pumping their fists in the air, according to unverified videos on social media.

Source: Reuters #Nov27

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/sha ... 022-11-27/

#ChinaProtests #Shanghai #Urumqi #Beijing #Wuhan #A4Revolution