(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) Hundreds of demonstrators and police have clashed in Shanghai as
protests over China's severe COVID-19 restrictions continued into a
third day and spread to several other cities, trend reports citing
reuters .
The latest demonstrations — unprecedented in mainland China
since President Xi Jinping took power a decade ago — began after 10
people were killed in a fire in Urumqi, the capital of the
far-western region of Xinjiang, that many of the protesters blame
on protracted COVID-19 lockdowns.
The deaths have become a lightning rod for frustrations over
Beijing's dogged commitment to zero-COVID and its combination of
strict lockdowns, mass testing and tracking that continues to
impede people's lives three years after the first cases of the
then-unknown virus were detected in the central city of Wuhan.
“I'm here because I love my country, but I don't love my
government … I want to be able to go out freely, but I can't. Our
COVID-19 policy is a game and is not based on science or reality,”
protester Shaun Xiao told the Reuters news agency in Shanghai,
China's largest city.
Hundreds of people gathered on Sunday evening in the city,
holding up blank sheets of paper as an expression of the censorship
of protest, as police kept a heavy presence on Wulumuqi Road, named
after Urumqi, and where a candlelight vigil on Saturday evolved
into a protest.
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