Find the stop. To circumvent and denounce censorship, protesters opposing the “zero covid” policy now use a white sheet of paper as a protest symbol to protest against the “zero covid” policy implemented by Beijing.
Students from universities located in Beijing and Nanjing, particularly mobilized, waved white sheets in protest during silent demonstrations, according to images published on social networks, the Reuters agency reported on Sunday.
Hundreds of people also followed this movement this Sunday afternoon in downtown Shanghai waving leaves and white flowers.
Hashtags censored, videos removed
They are all protesting against the excessive lockdowns imposed in recent weeks by the government in response to the discovery of several positive cases of Covid-19.
This protest movement is rare in China, where censorship is the law. Hashtags related to the protests are also censored on the Weibo platform, the country’s number 1 social network. Sensitive videos are removed from the Duoyin and Kuaishou sharing sites, also very popular in China, where the Whatsapp app is notoriously banned, Agence France-Presse explains.
Demonstrations are gathering momentum across the country as residents express their exhaustion over unannounced lockdowns and the systematic quarantine of contact cases in confinement centers.
Rare criticism of Beijing
This discontent has also been fueled by several high-profile cases in which emergency services during accidents were allegedly slowed down by health restrictions, with fatal consequences.
One particular fire killed ten people on Thursday in the country’s western Xinjiang region. De nombreux posts circulating sur les réseaux sociaux ont accusé les mesures anti-Covid d’avoir aggravé ce drame, des voitures garées depuis des semaines pour cause de confinement dans l’étroite ruelle menant à l’immeuble en flammes ayant entravé l’arrivée des bailing out.
A widely circulated video on the internet, which AFP has geolocated on Wulumuqi street in downtown Shanghai, shows protesters shouting “Xi Jinping, resign!” and also to attack the Chinese Communist Party, a rare display of hostility against the president and his regime.
China registered 39,506 covid cases on Sunday, a daily record that remains very low compared to the numbers registered in other parts of the world at the height of the pandemic.
Source: BFM TV
