Protestors detained in Shanghai amid clashes with police

People take to the street as highest number of Covid cases recorded for fifth straight day

Police in China detained at least three people on Monday after hundreds of angry residents clashed with them in Shanghai as rare protests over China’s stringent zero-Covid policy spilt over to the biggest cities.

China’s Communist Party reiterated the government’s commitment to strict zero-Covid policy as the country recorded the highest number of cases for the fifth straight day on Monday.

A wave of unprecedented anti-government protests against the lockdown as well as calls for greater political freedom has gripped China over Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid policy three years into the pandemic.

In Shanghai where protests continued for the third straight day, demonstrators clashed with the police during overnight protests.

Two people were detained by police in riot gear and blue barricades were put up across the roads that saw large protests during the weekend.

Police officers were pulling people aside and ordering them to delete photos and videos from their phones, in an apparent attempt to control information from spreading outside.

The mass demonstrations have spread to the major cities of Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Wuhan, among other areas.

People ride bicycles next to barricades on Wulumuqi street, named for Urumqi in Mandarin, in Shanghai (AFP via Getty Images)

In capital Beijing, large crowds gathered along the city’s 3rd Ring Road past midnight on Sunday during peaceful but often impassioned scenes.

But in the early hours of Monday, the protests gained momentum as two groups of people, totalling at least 1,000, refused to leave.

Protesters chanted “we don’t want lockdown” and “We don’t want Covid tests, we want freedom” as they raised blank white pieces of paper, which have become a symbol of defiance in China in recent days.

Cars that passed by regularly joined in the fanfare by honking their horns and giving thumbs up to protesters which in turn generated massive cheers from those gathered.

Protesters are raising blank A4 sheets, a symbol of defiance to signal how they are being silenced and also to taunt authorities as they cannot be arrested for holding signs saying nothing (Getty Images)

The protesters were trailed by dozens of uniformed police officers, with plain-clothes security personnel among the crowd and police cars moving along nearby.

Beijing’s police department head arrived on the scene to personally speak with the protesters and asked them to go home in an appeal he made through a loudspeaker.

“You young people. You need to go home now. You’re affecting traffic here by standing on the road,” he said.

Protests seem to continue unabated as China reported the highest number of Covid infections for the fifth straight day.

On Monday, the National Health Commission said they recorded 40,347 new Covid injections in a single day spike, rising from 39,506 a day earlier.

Beijing reported 3,888 infections while financial hub Shanghai saw 144 Covid cases, recording a significant rise from the previous day.

In its front-page editorial in the People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist party, it said China would “unwaveringly persist” in its Covid-19 policies and that “victory will be attained only by persisting to the end”.

“Timely detection and control of infected persons in the society, accurate identification and control of close contacts, and timely and accurate delineation and announcement of risk areas are the keys to seize the opportunity for epidemic prevention and control,” the People’s Daily wrote.

A deadly fire in Urumqi, the capital of northwest China’s Xinjiang region, last week that killed 10 people has become a catalyst for mounting public anger as several blamed Covid lockdown for impeding rescue efforts.

Parts of the city were under lockdown for 100 days and several believe that it hindered the rescue and escape of the people, an allegation city officials deny.

A protester who was briefly detained by Shanghai police told AFP that he was being taken in a van for filming the street.

“As a Shanghai citizen, I have the freedom to record this,” he said. “This is Shanghai now. There’s no freedom.”

Among those detained were a BBC journalist, Ed Lawrence, and a French journalist, Michael Peuker. Both of them were later released.

The BBC accused Chinese police of assaulting Mr Lawrence and said it was “concerned” over the arrest and his treatment.

Mr Peuker, the correspondent for Radio Télévision Suisse, was arrested after a live broadcast, the French-language branch of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation said.