Protesters blamed the blockade of the city for the delay in relief efforts during the fire that claimed 10 lives, and called for restrictions to be lifted.
China’s Covid-19 ‘zero cases’ strategy involves blocking entire neighborhoods and cities. Apartments are sometimes fenced with bars and the entrance doors are locked. Images distributed on social media show that the fire truck was initially unable to enter the neighborhood because the entrance gate was locked, and that residents were also unable to escape from the building, the door of which was blocked.
Authorities today denied some allegations about the fire and pointed out that certain online images of closed doors are fake, the official Xinhua news agency said. The same source acknowledged there were problems with access by firefighters, but blamed the cars parked in front of the neighborhood.
The protests outside the government headquarters in Urumqi city, Xinjiang province, brought together thousands of people and were widely publicized on Chinese social networks, despite the efforts of censorship.
The outcry reflects broader frustration in China over Covid-19’s “zero cases” strategy, which has contained the virus for nearly three years but has come under severe strain from the highly contagious Omicron variant.
On Saturday, the country recorded nearly 32,000 new cases — the third consecutive daily record.
In recent weeks, new restrictive lockdowns have been introduced in Beijing, Guangzhou and dozens of other smaller cities in China.
Physical confrontations between residents and health workers are becoming more common. In the middle of this month, groups of Guangzhou residents escaped the blockade of their neighborhoods, toppling a police vehicle and barriers around apartment buildings, prompting the intervention of riot police. This week, thousands of workers at a Foxconn factory, the group that assembles Apple’s iPhones, violently clashed with security agents.
In Beijing, too, several residents took to the streets to demand an end to the blockade of their neighborhoods.
Freedom House, a Washington-based pro-democracy organization, said it has registered dozens of protests in China over the lockdowns in recent months.
Urumqi police said on the Weibo social network that they had arrested a woman for “spreading rumours” about the number of victims of the fire. An initial investigation revealed that the fire was started by a short circuit in an electrical extension cord in the bedroom of one of the apartments on the 15th floor.
Parts of Urumqi, a metropolis with four million inhabitants, have been closed for several months. But following the protests, officials announced that the city had “fundamentally reduced transmissions within communities to zero” and “restored normal life for residents in low-risk areas in a gradual and orderly manner.”
Source: DN
