“We need freedom”: in Beijing, the anger does not dry up
Demonstrators in Beijing, this Sunday, November 27, 2022. AP - Ng Han Guan
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
Demonstrations in many cities in China, this Sunday, November 27, following the deadly fire in Urumqi, in Shanghai, but also against the “zero Covid” policy.
This had not happened for more than thirty years, a few hundred demonstrators marched through the streets of Beijing.
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"
We don't need a Covid test, we need freedom
," chanted the protesters who had met on the banks of the Liangmahe River this Saturday evening.
"
We saw Shanghai yesterday, Beijing had to do something
", explains one of them who, like many, brandishes a white sheet, a symbol, as in Russia, of the impossibility of expressing oneself and saying one's anger for years.
Some came with candles and flowers, to pay tribute to those missing from the Urumqi fire and to all the dead of “zero Covid”, explains a high tech employee.
We no longer want the health pass, we want freedom, explain these young people who are demonstrating for the first time in their lives, in front of sometimes surprised police officers who block to deflect the march, but without violence.
Chinese state media have not yet received the language of the protests across the country.
Result: the timelines and the One are essentially, animal or tourism and discovery this Sunday.
#China https://t.co/sCsGZwdOfl
— Stephane Lagarde (@StephaneLagarde) November 27, 2022
Some are afraid, watch the surveillance cameras, but in nearly eight hours of demonstration, the procession takes insurance.
Slogans evoke a need for political change.
Then the crowd again asks for the lifting of confinement when they arrive under an interchange on the third ring road.
Cars honk, and it's not for football, because China is not qualified for the World Cup.
It is to encourage the demonstrators.
Thumbs up, smile, after three years of Covid, Beijing is “coming
back
to life ”, one of them tells us.
I am both sad and angry, frustrated with what is happening in this country.
People don't agree with what the Chinese president is doing right now.
We waited too long, everyone is angry.
Unemployed film producer, he was in the Beijing protest
Stephane Lagarde
►Read again: China: dissatisfaction with health restrictions wins Beijing
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