Protests have intensified in China against the government’s crackdown on COVID-19, with some people publicly expressing their anger towards Communist Party leaders.
Thousands of protesters showed up in Shanghai and the BBC saw people being held in police cars.
Students also demonstrated at universities in Beijing and Nanjing.
The latest riots follow a protest in the remote northwestern city of Urumqi, where lockdown rules have been blamed after 10 people were killed in a tower fire.
Chinese authorities deny that Covid restrictions caused the deaths, and officials in Urumqi issued an extraordinary apology on Friday, promising to “restore order” by gradually lifting restrictions.
“Xi Jinping, come down!”
During a protest Saturday night in Shanghai, China’s largest city and global financial center in the east of the country, people were heard openly chanting slogans such as “Xi Jinping, withdraw” and “Communist Party, withdraw.”
Some carried white banners, while others lit candles and laid flowers for the victims in Urumqi.
Such demands are an unusual sight inside China, where any direct criticism of the government and president can lead to harsh sanctions.
But analysts say the government appears to have grossly underestimated the growing discontent with the zero Covid approach, a policy so closely associated with Xi Jinping that he recently pledged not to deviate from it.
The protests pose a major challenge to Chinese leaders.
A protester in Shanghai told the BBC he was “a bit shocked and excited” to see people on the streets, describing it as the first time he had seen such a huge opposition in China.
He said the lockdown made him feel “sad, angry and hopeless” and prevented him from seeing his sick mother, who was being treated for cancer.
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A female protester told the BBC that police officers were asked how they felt about the protests and replied: “Like you”. But she said, “They’re in their uniforms, so they’re doing their job.”
Others gave accounts of the violence, with one protester telling news agencies that one of his friends was beaten by police at the scene, while two others were pepper sprayed.
People gathered to demonstrate again on Sunday, laying flowers for victims of the Urumqi fires in Shanghai’s Urumqi Road district.
But also the police, present in large numbers at the site of the protests.
The BBC saw police officers, private security guards and plainclothes policemen in the streets, confronting protesters who had gathered for a second day.
Protesters chanting anti-government chants were led away, beaten or pushed and in some cases pushed into police cars.
Images and videos have also appeared online showing students demonstrating at universities in Beijing and Nanjing on Saturday.
A student told AFP that hundreds of people took part in one such demonstration at Tsinghua University in the capital.
The group carried blank papers, an act that has become a symbol of defiance of Chinese censorship, and were photographed singing songs in support of freedom and democracy.
Videos of the protests are difficult to independently verify, but many show clear and vocal criticism of the government and its leader.
On Sunday, hundreds of residents took to the streets of the central city of Wuhan, where the COVID-19 pandemic began, according to other videos posted on social media. Some protesters were filmed destroying the barricades.
The protests are the latest in an accelerating series of demonstrations against China’s special measures aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus, which has also become increasingly vocal in its criticism of the government and President Xi.
The “zero-Covid” strategy is the latest policy of its kind among the world’s major economies, in part due to China’s relatively low vaccination levels and efforts to protect the elderly.
The sudden lockdowns have caused outrage across the country and wider Covid restrictions have recently sparked violent protests in Qingzhou and Guangzhou.
Despite the drastic measures, the number of cases in China this week reached an all-time high since the start of the pandemic.
Unusual protest in criticizing President Xi
Tessa Wong – BBC News
The Urumqi fire has been a nightmare scenario for many Chinese people who have been under widespread restrictions in recent months — locked in someone’s apartment with no escape, according to some reports. The authorities resisted this, but that did not stop public anger and anxiety from spreading.
The protests have become the latest tipping point in the growing frustration. Millions of people are tired of nearly three years of movement restrictions and daily Covid tests. Anger has spread across China, from big cities to remote areas like Xinjiang and Tibet, galvanizing every section of society, including young university students, factory workers and ordinary citizens.
As this anger grows, protests against the Covid measures are becoming an increasingly common sight. But even this weekend’s demonstrations are unusual in this new normal, both in numbers and in direct criticism of the government and President Xi Jinping.
Taking to the streets en masse with hundreds calling for President Xi to resign would have been considered unimaginable not too long ago. But after the recent dramatic protest on a bridge in Beijing that stunned many, the opposition seems to be more open and explicit.
Others have chosen to wave the Chinese flag and sing the national anthem, whose lyrics espouse revolutionary ideals and call on people to “rise up”. It is a show of patriotism that can also be read as a clear expression of solidarity with Chinese people suffering under Xi’s zero Covid policy and a call to action.
