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https://nypost.com/2022/11/26/covid-protests-erupt-in-chinas-xinjiang-after-deadly-fire/
Rare protests broke out in China’s far western Xinjiang region, with
crowds shouting at hazmat-suited guards after a deadly fire triggered
anger over their prolonged COVID-19 lockdown as nationwide infections
set another record.
Crowds chanted “End the lockdown!”, pumping their fists in the air as
they walked down a street, according to videos circulated on Chinese
social media on Friday night. Reuters verified the footage was published
from the Xinjiang capital Urumqi.
Videos showed people in a plaza singing China’s national anthem with its lyric, “Rise up, those who refuse to be slaves!” while others shouted
that they wanted to be released from lockdowns.
China has put the vast Xinjiang region under some of the country’s
longest lockdowns, with many of Urumqi’s 4 million residents barred from leaving their homes for as long as 100 days. The city reported about 100
new cases each of the past two days.
Xinjiang is home to 10 million Uyghurs. Rights groups and Western
governments have long accused Beijing of abuses against the mainly
Muslim ethnic minority, including forced labor in internment camps.
China strongly rejects such claims.
The Urumqi protests followed a fire in a high-rise building there that
killed 10 on Thursday night.
Authorities have said the building’s residents had been able to go downstairs, but videos of emergency crews’ efforts, shared on Chinese
social media, led many internet users to surmise that residents could
not escape in time because the building was partially locked down.
Urumqi officials abruptly held a news conference in the early hours of Saturday, denying that COVID measures had hampered escape and rescue but
saying they would investigate further. One said residents could have
escaped faster if they had better understood fire safety.
‘BLAME THE VICTIM’
Dali Yang, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, said such
a “blame-the-victim” attitude would make people angrier. “Public trust will just sink lower,” he told Reuters.
Users on China’s Weibo platform described the incident as a tragedy that sprang out of China’s insistence on sticking to its zero-COVID policy
and something that could happen to anyone. Some lamented its
similarities to the deadly September crash of a COVID quarantine bus.
“Is there not something we can reflect on to make some changes,” said an essay that went viral on WeChat on Friday, questioning the official
narrative on the Urumqi apartment fire.
China defends President Xi Jinping’s signature zero-COVID policy as life-saving and necessary to prevent overwhelming the healthcare system. Officials have vowed to continue with it despite the growing public
pushback and its mounting toll on the world’s second-biggest economy.
While the country recently tweaked its measures, shortening quarantines
and taking other targeted steps, this coupled with rising cases has
caused widespread confusion and uncertainty in big cities, including
Beijing, where many residents are locked down at home.
China recorded 34,909 daily local cases, low by global standards but the
third record in a row, with infections spreading numerous cities,
prompting widespread lockdowns and other curbs on movement and business.
Shanghai, China’s most populous city and financial hub, tightened
testing requirements on Saturday for entering cultural venues such as
museums and libraries, requiring people to present a negative COVID test
taken within 48 hours, down from 72 hours earlier.
Beijing’s Chaoyang Park, popular with runners and picnickers, shut again after having briefly reopened.
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