Protests against China’s strict zero-Covid policy and restrictions on freedoms have spread to at least a dozen cities worldwide in solidarity with rare displays of defiance in China over the weekend.
According to Reuters, expatriate dissidents and students held small-scale vigils and protests in cities around the world, including London, Paris, Tokyo, and Sydney.
The protests drew dozens of people in most cases, though a few drew more than 100, according to the tally.
The protests are a rare example of Chinese people coming together in anger both at home and abroad.
The mainland protests were sparked by a fire in China’s Xinjiang region last week, which killed ten people trapped in their apartments. Protesters claimed that lockdown measures were partially to blame, but officials denied this.
Hundreds of protesters gathered in Hong Kong’s Central business district on Monday evening, the site of sometimes-violent anti-government demonstrations in 2019.
According to video footage online, dozens of students gathered at the Chinese University of Hong Kong campus to mourn those who died in Xinjiang.
The White House National Security Council said China will find it difficult to “control this virus through their zero Covid strategies,” adding that “everyone has the right to peacefully protest, here in the United States and around the world.” This also applies to the [People’s Republic of China].”
In an email sent on Monday, UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence urged “the authorities to respond to protests in accordance with international human rights laws and standards.”
Laurence went on to say that allowing broad societal debate could “help shape public policies, ensure they are better understood, and ultimately more effective.”
Since President Xi Jinping took office a decade ago, authorities have tightened controls on civil society, the media, and the internet.
However, a strict policy aimed at eradicating Covid through lockdowns and quarantine has become a lightning rod for dissatisfaction. While it has kept China’s death toll much lower than that of many other countries, it has come at the expense of millions of people being imprisoned at home and economic damage to the world’s second-largest economy.
Nonetheless, Chinese officials say it must be maintained in order to save lives, particularly those of the elderly, who have low vaccination rates.
Some protesters from other countries said it was their turn to bear some of the burdens their friends and family had been bearing.
“It’s the right thing to do.” “When I saw so many Chinese citizens and students take to the streets, my feeling is that they have taken on so much more than we have,” said graduate student Chiang Seeta, one of the organisers of a 200-person demonstration in Paris on Sunday.
“We’re now showing international support for them,” Chiang said.
On Monday, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told a regular briefing that China was not aware of any international protests calling for an end to the zero-Covid policy.
When asked about domestic protests, the spokesperson said the question did not “reflect what actually happened,” and that China believed the fight against Covid would be successful with the leadership of the ruling Chinese Communist Party and people’s cooperation.
Overseas Chinese students have frequently demonstrated in recent years in support of their government against its critics, but anti-government protests have been rare.
Protesters brought flowers and candles to the Pompidou Centre in Paris in memory of those killed in the Xinjiang fire.
Some blamed Xi and the Communist Party, calling for their removal from power.
After a dissident hung a banner on a Beijing bridge last month ahead of a Communist Party congress, criticizing Xi for clinging to power and the zero-Covid policy, defiance toward Xi has grown increasingly public.
On Sunday, about 90 people gathered at Shinjuku, one of Tokyo’s busiest train stations, including a university student from Beijing who claimed that any protests against Covid rules in China would inevitably blame the Communist Party.
“At the heart of it is China’s system,” said the student, who requested anonymity.
However, some protesters were put off by more aggressive slogans.
An organizer of a protest planned for later Monday at Columbia University in New York, who requested anonymity, said
Also read: Protestors rise against Xi Jinping’s Zero Covid Policy
Shawn, the organizer of a protest planned for later Monday at Columbia University in New York, said she would avoid sensitive issues such as Taiwan’s status and China’s mass internment of ethnic Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
“We understand that may alienate a lot of people,” Shawn, from the Chinese city of Fuzhou, said.
Source: Reuters
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