Chinese police detained two people in Shanghai on Monday, where protesters protested over the weekend against health restrictions in response to Covid-19 and demanded more freedoms.
An officer told Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency that one of the two people “had not obeyed” police orders and forwarded details of the arrests to local authorities.
According to an AFP reporter, the agents were also removing other people from the scene and ordering them to delete images from their cell phones.
On Sunday, several people protested against China’s strict “covid zero” policy, which has been in place for almost three years, but also to demand more political freedom.
There were clashes with the police and many people were detained, said AFP, which indicated that it has not yet received a response from the Shanghai police on the number of arrests made on Sunday.
The streets were closed on Sunday night after the protests and reopened this morning (local time) with less police presence, but with blue billboards placed along the sidewalks to prevent further crowding.
On Sunday, in response to appeals made on social media, protesters took to the streets in several Chinese cities in addition to Shanghai, including Beijing, Nanjing and Urumqi, to protest against Covid-19 prevention and control measures. .
Anti-government ‘slogans’ were heard at the protests, in a rare demonstration of hostility against the regime and the strict “covid zero” policy, applied since the start of the pandemic, in 2020.
Under this policy, China imposes the lockdown of entire neighborhoods or cities, the constant carrying out of massive tests and the isolation of all positive cases and their direct contacts in designated facilities, often in degrading conditions.
Source: TSF
