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A Nov. 24 fire at an apartment block in the Xinjiang regional capital of Urumqi sparked protests across China over the weekend, with many expressing condolences for the victims of the fire in the lockdown and others retaliating against ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s zero-sum COVID strike politics.
RFA spoke to five people who took part in demonstrations in Beijing, Shanghai, the southwestern city of Chengdu and the southern city of Guangzhou:
Urumqi Road, Shanghai
A protester, who gave only the surname Chen for fear of reprisals, said he was at a protest on Urumqi Shanghai Road near the intersection with Wuyuan Road on Sunday afternoon, which was also a vigil for the victims of the Urumqi fire.
Chen said he had heard that police had arrested some protesters at the same location on Saturday, but figured he would be fine if he stayed further back in the crowd.
“I thought I’d be fine as long as I wasn’t in the front row,” Chen told RFA. “I figured if I got on the second or third row and they started arresting people, they’d start on the front row.”
There were already about 500 people there when Chen arrived at the protest, he said.
“The police stood there without moving for most of the time, but then they suddenly rushed forward, dived into the crowd and dragged some people out indiscriminately and put them on a bus,” Chen said, adding that the majority of those detained appeared to be women.
“They caught me and hung me upside down [from my feet]” he said, still horrified by the memory. “I put my hands on the ground and there was blood on my hands and blood on my face. I thought ‘this is it, I’m not getting out of this’ and then they put me on the bus.
Chen said he witnessed the beating of a woman who tried to resist being taken to the bus.
“About a dozen police officers pinned this woman to the ground and beat her, all the while the woman struggled desperately,” he said. “Then they hung the woman upside down [like they did with me] and more than a dozen of them put her on the bus.”
Chen, who is extremely nearsighted, said he managed to jump off the bus while police were dealing with other detainees, but lost his shoes and glasses in the process.
He walked in his socks to hide in a nearby street, with the help of several bystanders, before eventually returning home, he said.
Chen says he still feels fear as a result of the incident.
“I said [a friend] that I will contact her every day so she knows I’m okay and that she should tweet my personal details if I don’t hear from her for a day,” he said.
All the protesters interviewed by reporters shared similar fears, and all chose not to use their real voices on the radio.
Tsinghua University, Beijing
Mr. X from Tsinghua University first saw the protest on the college campus when he headed to the student cafeteria in the Bauhinia Garden Building. He declined to be named to ensure his personal safety.
A video shot by Mr. X and sent to RFA shows about 20 people standing around holding blank sheets of paper in protest against restrictions on their freedom of speech.
Protesters sang the Chinese national anthem and shouted slogans calling for “democracy and the rule of law, freedom of expression,” their voices echoing in the front of the building, the footage showed.
According to Mr. X, the university sent several professors to mediate with the students.
“Teachers promised to change the requirements for daily testing for COVID-19, rethink which areas were under lockdown and review the rules for entering and leaving the school campus, hold a meeting with school leaders [on Monday]and that no one will be held responsible [for taking part in the demonstration],” he said.
But quite soon after, Communist Party workers began doing “ideological work” with students, jumping into WeChat group discussions to warn people not to be “deceived by foreign powers and traitors [to China].”
The rally in Bauhinia Garden broke up at around 2pm on Sunday, but students were then called to an emergency school-wide political assembly at 8pm, where they were told not to take part in any further protests.
Wangping Street, Chengdu
An anonymous protester from the southwestern city of Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, said he had not seen such a level of anti-government sentiment expressed publicly since the student-led pro-democracy movement since 1989.
“All over the country there is such a sense of mourning as well as discontent,” the protester, who asked to be named only as Mr J to protect himself and his family, told RFA. “This is an emotion that has not been seen in public in China since then [1989].”
The man said he saw a WeChat message in a group chat urging people to go to a candlelight vigil for the victims of the Urumqi fire on Wangping Street, next to the Jin River.
Video of the vigil, shot by Mr J, shows a young woman standing in the front line of protesters facing a line of police.
“Do you know how many businesses are sitting empty here? [near] Chunxi Road, Ping Street?” she tells the cops. “Longquan District is still blocked off, and so is Qingbaiyang District.”
“You’re all fine because you have your wages, but do you know that ordinary people support you with their savings? – says the woman, met with puzzled silence.
“The police were very low-key and just told her not to get emotional and to pay attention to her safety,” said Mr J.
The vigil began with a group of people sitting in a circle with candles to express their condolences for the victims of the fire, but as the crowd grew, people began shouting slogans including: “Vote, not emperors!” and “Freedom! Freedom!”
Mr J estimated that around 2,000 people eventually gathered at the scene, with some being dragged away by police.
Haiju Square, Guangzhou
A Guangzhou resident, who gave only the surname Wang, said he turned up at Haiju Square in the southern city of Guangzhou around 10:30pm on Saturday night to find about 20 to 30 people holding signs surrounded by phalanxes of police employees.
A number of protesters outside the wall with a police shield chanted slogans calling on police to let the protesters, who are “kittens,” go, which police eventually did after surrounding them for more than an hour, Wan told RFA.
Photos of the scene, taken by Wang and sent to RFA, show a crowd of thousands of people – although it is unclear how many are protesting and how many are simply standing and watching – many of them holding a blank piece of paper.
Zhongshan Avenue, Wuhan
A small business owner from the central city of Wuhan, who gave only the nickname “Howard” for fear of reprisals, filmed a demonstration at the intersection of Zhongshan Avenue and Duofu Road in the city, with large numbers of police officers lining up, separating one group of people from another in a process known as “kettling”.
“Residents chanted slogans demanding an end to the lockdown and for city leaders to come forward [to talk to the crowd]” Howard told RFA. “Someone shouted ‘we’re not in the Qing dynasty anymore,'” he said, referring to China’s last imperial dynasty, which ended with Sun Yat-sen’s 1911 revolution.
He said the protest was in a part of town densely populated with small businesses.
Many business owners removed the blocking fences and traffic barriers on Sunday, and the police did nothing to stop them, he told RFA.
Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
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