Crowds angered by COVID-19 lockdowns call for China's Xi to step down
Crowds angered by COVID-19 lockdowns call for China's Xi to step down
SHANGHAI -
Protesters angered by strict anti-virus measures called for China's powerful leader to resign, an unprecedented rebuke as authorities in at least eight cities struggled to suppress demonstrations Sunday that represent a rare direct challenge to the ruling Communist Party.
Police using pepper spray drove away demonstrators in Shanghai who called for Xi Jinping to step down and an end to one-party rule, but hours later people rallied again in the same spot. Police again broke up the demonstration, and a reporter saw protesters under arrest being driven away in a bus.
The protests -- which began Friday and have spread to cities including the capital, Beijing, and dozens of university campuses -- are the most widespread show of opposition to the ruling party in decades.
In a video of the protest in Shanghai verified by The Associated Press, chants sounded loud and clear: "Xi Jinping! Step down! CCP! Step down!"
Xi, the most powerful leader since at least the 1980s, awarded himself a third five-year term in October as leader of the ruling party. Some expect him to try to stay in power for life.
Three years after the virus emerged, China is the only major country still trying to stop transmission of COVID-19. Its "zero COVID" strategy has suspended access to neighbourhoods for weeks at a time. Some cities carry out daily virus tests on millions of residents.
That has kept China's infection numbers lower than those the United States and other major countries, but public acceptance has worn thin. People who are quarantined at home in some areas say they lack food and medicine. The ruling party faced public anger following the deaths of two children whose parents said anti-virus controls hampered efforts to get medical help.
Protests erupted after a fire broke out Thursday and killed at least 10 people in an apartment building in the city of Urumqi in the northwest, where some have been locked in their homes for four months. That prompted an outpouring of angry questions online about whether firefighters or people trying to escape were blocked by locked doors or other anti-virus restrictions.
About 300 demonstrators gathered late Saturday in Shanghai, most of whose 25 million people were confined to their homes for almost two months starting in late March.
On a street named for Urumqi, one group of protesters brought candles, flowers and signs honoring those who died in the blaze. Another, according to a protester who insisted on anonymity, was more active, shouting slogans and singing the national anthem.
The protester and another, who gave only his family name, Zhao, confirmed the chants against Xi. Like others who spoke to the AP about the protests, they didn't want to be identified due to fear of arrest or retaliation.
The atmosphere of the protest encouraged people to speak about topics considered taboo, including the 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests, the unnamed protester said.
Some called for an official apology for the deaths in the fire in Urumqi in the Xinjiang region. One member of Xinjiang's Uyghur ethnic group, which has been the target of a security crackdown that includes mass detentions, shared his experiences of discrimination and police violence.
"Everyone thinks that Chinese people are afraid to come out and protest, that they don't have any courage," said the protester, who said it was his first time demonstrating. "Actually in my heart, I also thought this way. But then when I went there, I found that the environment was such that everyone was very brave."
The scene turned violent early Sunday. Hundreds of police broke up the more active group before they came for the second as they tried to move people off the main street. The protester said that he saw people being taken away, forced by police into vans, but could not identify them.
Zhao said one of his friends was beaten by police and two were pepper-sprayed. He lost his shoes and left barefoot.
He said protesters yelled slogans, including one that has become a rallying cry: "(We) do not want PCR (tests), but want freedom."
On Sunday afternoon, crowds returned to the same spot and again railed against PCR tests. People stood and filmed as police shoved people.
Officers in surgical masks and yellow safety vests told the crowd of about 300 spectators to leave but appeared to be trying to avoid a confrontation. There was no sign of shields or other riot gear.
In Beijing, a group of about 200 people gathered in a park on the capital's east side and held up blank sheets of paper, a symbol of defiance against the ruling party's pervasive censorship.
"The lockdown policy is so strict," said a protestor, who would give only his surname, Li. "You cannot compare it to any other country. We have to find a way out."
Postings on social media said there were also demonstrations at 50 universities.
About 2,000 students at Xi's alma mater, Tsinghua University in Beijing, gathered to demand an easing of anti-virus controls, according to social media posts. Students shouted "freedom of speech!" and sang the Internationale, the socialist anthem.
The protesters left after the university's deputy Communist Party secretary promised to hold a school-wide discussion.
Videos on social media that said they were filmed in Nanjing in the east, Guangzhou in the south and at least six other cities showed protesters tussling with police in white protective suits or dismantling barricades used to seal off neighborhoods. The Associated Press could not verify that all those protests took place or where.
The human rights group Amnesty International appealed to Beijing to allow peaceful protest.
"The tragedy of the Urumqi fire has inspired remarkable bravery across China," the group's regional director, Hanna Young, said in a statement. "These unprecedented protests show that people are at the end of their tolerance for excessive COVID-19 restrictions."
Urumqi and a smaller city in Xinjiang, Korla, eased some anti-virus controls in what appeared to be an attempt to mollify the public following Friday's protests.
Markets and other businesses will reopen in areas deemed at low risk of virus transmission and bus, train and airline service will resume, state media reported. They gave no indication whether residents in higher-risk areas would be allowed out of their homes.
-------
Wu reported from Taipei, Taiwan.
Correction
This version has been updated to correct that the fire in Urumqi was on Thursday, not Friday.
Sign up to receive the most important updates in your inbox two times a week
This undated electron microscope image made available by the U.S. National Institutes of Health in February 2020 shows the Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, orange, emerging from the surface of cells, green, cultured in the lab. (NIAID-RML via AP)
Convicted murderer Daniel Jolivet, in prison for the past 30 years, has maintained his innocence since the day he was arrested. W5 reviews the evidence he painstakingly assembled while behind bars. W5's documentary 'Buried Evidence' airs Saturday at 7 p.m. on CTV.
The massive white orb drifting across U.S. airspace has triggered a diplomatic maelstrom and is blowing up on social media. A look at what's known about the balloon crossing the U.S. and what isn't.
In the field of cancer treatment, nothing is more important than diagnosing and treating the problem as quickly as possible — but according to new survey data, about one in four Canadian cancer patients report that they are still experiencing cancelled or postponed appointments.
The oldest preserved vertebrate brain has been found in a 319-million-year-old fossilized fish skull that was removed from an English coal mine over a century ago.
The suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that was found floating over sensitive military sites in the western United States had been tracked by Canada's government since last weekend as it passed through Canadian airspace, sources tell CTV News.
It took 40 years, but former NHL player and coach Ted Nolan is now one of eight Indigenous ex-NHL-ers being honoured hockey trading cards as a part of Upper Deck's First Peoples Rookie Card series.
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has said the supply of more advanced U.S. weaponry to Ukraine will only trigger more retaliatory strikes from Russia, up to the extent of Russia's nuclear doctrine.
Indian police have arrested more than 2,000 men in a crackdown on illegal child marriages involving girls under the age of 18 in a northeastern state, officials said Saturday.
Canada announced that it had called China's ambassador onto the carpet as Ottawa and Washington expressed their disapproval Friday over a high-altitude balloon found to have been hovering over sensitive sites in the United States.
A group of airlines is asking the Supreme Court of Canada to hear their case after a lower court largely upheld the validity of Canada's air passenger bill of rights.
Medicago Inc., the Quebec-based drug manufacturer of a Canadian COVID-19 vaccine and other plant-based drugs, is being shut down by parent company Mitsubishi Chemical Group.
A landmine killed a 13-year-old boy in the contested Yemeni city of Hodeida, medical and security officials said Friday, the latest in a string of similar incidents in the war-torn country.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Friday that industrialized countries in the Group of Seven are imposing a price cap on refined Russian oil products such as diesel and kerosene, as part of a coalition that includes Australia and a tentative agreement from the European Union.
The massive white orb drifting across U.S. airspace has triggered a diplomatic maelstrom and is blowing up on social media. A look at what's known about the balloon crossing the U.S. and what isn't.
A huge, high-altitude Chinese balloon sailed across the U.S. on Friday, drawing severe Pentagon accusations of spying on sensitive military sites despite China's firm denials. Secretary of State Antony Blinken abruptly canceled a high-stakes Beijing trip aimed at easing U.S.-China tensions.
The suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that was found floating over sensitive military sites in the western United States had been tracked by Canada's government since last weekend as it passed through Canadian airspace, sources tell CTV News.
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is hosting an in-person meeting Friday with the provincial and territorial finance ministers in Toronto to discuss issues including the current economic environment and the transition to a clean economy.
Paid subscriptions to on-demand care are among the many strategies primary health-care providers in Ontario are adopting in order to meet increased demand for access to doctors in the past year, while also managing staffing shortages.
Ontario fully supports the federal government's push to make health-care funding contingent on data reporting, the province said Thursday as it announced a plan to boost access to primary care doctors.
White-tailed deer may be a reservoir for COVID-19 variants of concern including Alpha, Delta and Gamma, according to new research out of Cornell University that raises questions about whether deer could re-introduce nearly extinct variants back into the human population.
Using a device that might be described as a super-duper cocktail shaker, scientists have fashioned a previously unknown form of ice - one that might exist on our solar system's icy moons - in research that sheds light on water's behaviour under extreme conditions.
The oldest preserved vertebrate brain has been found in a 319-million-year-old fossilized fish skull that was removed from an English coal mine over a century ago.
Three bodies found in a vacant Detroit-area apartment building have been identified as those of three aspiring rappers who went missing nearly two weeks ago, police said Friday.
Mexican actor Pablo Lyle was sentenced Friday to five years in prison for involuntary manslaughter after fatally punching a man during a road rage confrontation in Miami in 2019.
A California jury has ruled that Elon Musk is not liable for losses experienced by Tesla shareholders following his controversial "funding secured" tweet from 2018.
A Yukon court has quashed government approval for a mining exploration project, siding with a First Nation that argued there was a failure to properly consult it about the project on its traditional territory.
A group of airlines is asking the Supreme Court of Canada to hear their case after a lower court largely upheld the validity of Canada's air passenger bill of rights.
A Portuguese dog named Bobi has been named the world’s oldest living dog by Guinness World Records, which claims the pooch is also the oldest canine ever recorded.
Canada's newest millionaire, an 18-year-old university freshman from northern Ontario, has achieved a lot of firsts with a recent lottery win. Here is her story.
It took 40 years, but former NHL player and coach Ted Nolan is now one of eight Indigenous ex-NHL-ers being honoured hockey trading cards as a part of Upper Deck's First Peoples Rookie Card series.
The world’s largest international Arctic sporting event is underway in northern Alberta, where athletes compete in unique games significant to the cultural identity of the North.
Unable to get a new contract, Kyrie Irving is looking for a new address. The All-Star guard has asked the Brooklyn Nets for a trade, a person with knowledge of the details said Friday.
Formula One's governing body confirmed the six engine providers for the 2026-30 cycle on Friday which aims to use sustainable fuels and greater electric power.
Ford will return to Formula One as the engine provider for Red Bull Racing in a partnership announced Friday that begins with immediate technical support this season and engines in 2026.
