Banners protesting against Chinese President Xi Jinping and the government’s “zero-Covid” policy, had appeared in Beijing last week. The posters have now appeared in eight other cities including Shenzhen, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong. “We want food, not PCR tests. We want freedom, not lockdowns and controls. We want respect, not lies,” one of the banners read.
Xi Jinping was reappointed for a third term on October 16 at the communist party congress. The first poster appeared about two days before that. In the poster, the man described Xi as a dictator. He was quickly detained, but, posters with similar messages have popped up at university campuses in the US, UK, Europe, Australia and elsewhere.
VoiceofCN -- a group of anonymous Chinese nationals who run a pro-democracy Instagram account said it received several submissions showing the slogans from mainland China, Bloomberg reported. Most of these slogans were seen on school notice boards or inside bathrooms. Several of the graffiti conveyed the message to 'reject dictatorship'.
"We, people of China, want to spread this message that speaks our mind in places without censorship," read a hand-written sign in a college in Maine, praising the first banner that was hung up on a bridge in Beijing. Another banner called on residents to "go on strike at school and work, remove the dictator and national traitor Xi Jinping".
Even before the banner was hung up, anger had been building over strict security measures and the Covid-19 restrictions. Since the beginning of the pandemic, authorities had been adopting a strict zero-Covid policy, something the West has criticised China for, too. Beijing borders have been shuttered preventing people from getting out or into the city. Tens of millions of people are being tested every three days.
On October 14, footage leaked on social media, which showed unexplained plumes of smoke on Sitong bridge in Beijing's Haidian district and a man could be heard shouting slogans into a loudhailer. Some signs referencing the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy protests have also popped up in China according to activists.
Following this, there was a severe crackdown online and footage, pictures and other media containing keywords like 'Haidian', 'Beijing protester' and 'Sitong bridge' were taken off Chinese social media platforms. Accounts of WeChat users who shares images of the protests were suspended.
Any public display of anti-Xi sentiments could land a person in prison for a long time.
