Police in China crack down on Covid protests
China’s social media platforms are being gradually scrubbed clean of even indirect references to protests
China on Tuesday further strengthened police presence in cities, tightened online censorship and made arrangements to send university students back home as authorities tried to prevent more protests by crowds exasperated by hard Covid-19 curbs
Reports said police were digging up records of individuals who took part in the weekend protests and summoning them to police stations while some people seen at key protest sites in the last 24 hours were asked to show their mobile phones for messages related to the demonstrations.
China’s social media platforms were being gradually scrubbed clean of even indirect references to the protests, which took place in several cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Urumqi, Guangzhou, Wuhan and Hangzhou.
Triggered partly by a fatal fire in Urumqi, the protests were the biggest show of public defiance against newly reanointed Communist party general secretary for the third time, Xi Jinping and his ‘zero-covid’ strategy.
While there was no word of fresh protests on Tuesday in Beijing, Shanghai or in any other city, residents told the media that police personnel deployed on streets were going through their phones to check
for suspicious content, use of virtual private networks (VPN) or the Telegram app, apparently used to coordinate protests at different locations.
‘Zero-covid’ policy
Chinese officials, meanwhile, have reiterated - the often repeated - “unswerving commitment” to the ‘zero-covid’ policy after introducing some easing of the rules.
“Covid-19 control measures should be lifted in a timely manner as soon as conditions allow to minimise the inconvenience caused by the restrictions on people’s daily lives,” Mi Feng, the national health commission (NHC) spokesperson, said on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, China reported the first decline in daily infections in more than a week, data released by NHC on Tuesday for Monday showed. Local infections, majority asymptomatic, totalled 38,421, down from a record high of 40,052 reported on Monday for Sunday.