Protests grip China,Xi Jinping faces unprecedented dissent
   Date :29-Nov-2022

Protests grip China 
 
 
 
BEIJING, 
 
CHINESE President Xi Jinping on Monday faced unprecedented dissent after thousands of demonstrators protested in cities across the country over the weekend against his zeroCOVID strategy, with some daring to openly call for his removal in the streets. “Step down, Xi Jinping! Step down, Communist Party,” some protesters yelled among hundreds who gathered in the financial hub Shanghai, one of multiple major cities where protests broke out following a deadly fire on November 24 at an apartment block in the far western region of Xinjiang, reports ‘CNN’.
These protests have now spread to other major cities like Guangzhou, Xinjiang, Wuhan, Chengdu, Dali, Lanzhou and Beijing that too with similar slogans against the CCP, Xi and the Zero COVIDpolicy. The last time anything like this happened in China was during the May Fourth Movement in 1919 and the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989, as reported by Voices Against Autocracy. These protests are even bigger than the Tiananmen Square incident of 1989 and the slogans ‘Communist Party step down’ and ‘Xi Jinping step down’ are chanted for the first time in the country, Voices Against Autocracy reported.
The fire appeared to act as a catalyst for searing public anger over China’s strict zero-COVID measures after videos emerged that seemed to suggest lockdown measures delayed firefighters from reaching the victims.
‘BBC’ journalist beaten, handcuffed, held by authorities: IN WORRYING news around the ongoing mass anti-COVID restrictions protests across China, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has expressed concern over the treatment meted out by Chinese authorities, to its journalist, who was arrested and handcuffed while covering a similar ongoing protest in Shanghai. In a statement, ‘BBC’ showed concern over the reports that its journalist in China, Ed Lawrence was beaten and kicked by the police while he was being arrested.