Residents demand release

Some get a chance to go outside after months staying in

On a balmy Sunday night, residents of an upscale Shanghai compound took to the streets to decry lockdown restrictions imposed by their community. By the following morning, they were free to leave.

The triumphant story quickly spread on chat groups across the Chinese city this week, sparking one question in the minds of those who remained under lockdown: Shouldn't we do the same?

By the end of the week, other groups of residents had confronted management in their complexes, and some had won at least a partial release.

While it's unclear how widespread they are, the incidents reflect the frustration that has built up after more than seven weeks of lockdown, even as the number

of new daily cases has fallen to a few hundred in a city of 25 million people.

They also are a reminder of the power of China's neighborhood committees that the ruling Communist Party relies on to spread propaganda messages, enforce its decisions and even settle personal disputes. Such committees and the residential committees under them have become the

target of complaints, especially after some in Shanghai and other cities refused to allow residents out even after official restrictions were relaxed.

More than 21 million people in Shanghai are now in “precaution zones,” the least restrictive category. In theory, they are free to go out. In practice, the decision is up to their residential committees, resulting in a kaleidoscope of arbitrary rules.

Some are allowed out, but only for a few hours with a specially issued pass for one day or certain days of the week. Some places permit only one person per household to leave. Others forbid people to leave at all.

“We have already been given at least three different dates when we are going to reopen, and none of them were real,” said Weronika Truszczynska, a graduate student from Poland who posted vlogs about her experience.

“The residential committee told us you can wait a week, we are going to reopen probably on June 1st,” she said. “No one believed it.”

Two days after the Sunday night breakout at the upscale Huixianju compound, more than a dozen residents of Truszczynska's complex confronted their managers on a rainy Tuesday,

“We got the possibility of going out just because we were brave enough to protest,” Truszczynska said of her fellow residents.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Residents confront a representative about opening up of their compound in Shanghai on Wednesday. Residents in China's largest city of Shanghai have become bolder in demanding the lifting or easing of coronavirus restrictions.