Covid-19 in China: Urumqi to ease lockdowns amid unrest over deadly fire
- Footage appears online of public protests and fire engines blocked from entering a residential complex
- Official says city has achieved ‘zero Covid’ while resident says people are at breaking point
Authorities in Urumqi in China’s far west said on Saturday the city would lift coronavirus restrictions “in phases” after footage surfaced online showing rare protests against a three-month lockdown.
The footage – later censored – showed hundreds of residents in a public square outside a government office, chanting slogans such as “serve the people” and “end the lockdown” and singing the national anthem. Other clips showed scuffles between residents and people in hazmat suits in the street.
On Saturday morning, Xinjiang’s Communist Party committee met and ordered the Urumqi government to “solidly” work to maintain social order and clamp down on any “violent resistance against Covid control measures”.
An avalanche of angry online posts about the official explanation for the fire swept also across Chinese social media, with some internet users comparing the outcry to that following the death of whistle-blower doctor Li Wenliang, who died of Covid-19 in 2020 after being reprimanded for alerting his friends about the new disease.
An Urumqi resident reached by the South China Morning Post said he could not leave his home to verify the videos or to discuss them with others. But he said residents were all aware of the clips and the city had reached a breaking point.