China: The protest banners demanding the ouster of Chinese President Xi Jinping were strung up on a bridge in Beijing two days prior to his appointment to a third term on October 16. A wave of protests have now been organised both inside China and around the world in response to the banner that condemned the stringent lockdowns and restrictions that have characterised Xi’s zero-Covid policy.
Resistance in China
A group of unidentified Chinese nationals who operate a pro-democracy Instagram account called VoiceofCN told Bloomberg that there are now anti-Xi signs in at least eight Chinese cities. Along with Hong Kong, these eight cities also include Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou.
VoiceofCN’s administrator added that the organisation received a number of submissions displaying the phrases from the Chinese mainland. It’s interesting that most of these messages were displayed in restrooms or on school noticeboards.
Since the majority of bathrooms are hidden from view by the security cameras that are present in most public areas, bathrooms have emerged as a prominent location for protests against the Chinese government.
At the China Film Archive Art Cinema in Beijing, a toilet wall had a graffiti that said, “Reject dictatorships.”
World-wide Protests
According to a Bloomberg story, there were also anti-Xi Jinping protest signs in more than 200 campuses across the US, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and other countries.
We, the people of China, wish to propagate this message that speaks our minds in locations without censorship, according to a handwritten sign at a college in Maine, US, that complimented the first protest banner that was hoisted up on the Beijing bridge.
The majority of the students who erect the banners, according to a VoiceofCN administrator who spoke with Bloomberg, are doing it in order to “speak out our indignation, which has been stifled for so long by the government and its censorship apparatus.”
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Inspection on Protest
Any form of open opposition to Xi in China could result in a protracted prison sentence. All images and key words associated with the protest banner’s messages have been blocked on China’s internet since it was unfurled over the Beijing bridge. On all Chinese social media sites, terms like “Sitong bridge” and “Beijing protester” have been banned. According to the BBC, even words like “bridge,” “courage,” and “hero” have restrictions.
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