{"id":261690,"date":"2022-11-27T07:56:45","date_gmt":"2022-11-27T07:56:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=261690"},"modified":"2022-11-28T08:11:18","modified_gmt":"2022-11-28T08:11:18","slug":"covid-lockdown-protests-break-out-in-western-china-after-deadly-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=261690","title":{"rendered":"Covid lockdown protests break out in western China after deadly fire"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Reuters \u2013 Nov 26, 2022<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>Protests have broken out in China\u2019s far western <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/xinjiang\">Xinjiang<\/a> region, with crowds shouting at hazmat-suited guards after a deadly fire triggered anger over their prolonged Covid-19 lockdown as nationwide infections set another record.<\/p>\n<p>Crowds chanted \u201cEnd the lockdown,\u201d pumping their fists in the air as they walked down a street, according to videos circulated on Chinese social media on Friday night. Reuters verified the footage was published from the Xinjiang capital, Urumqi.<\/p>\n<p>Videos showed people in a plaza singing China\u2019s national anthem with its lyric \u201cRise up, those who refuse to be slaves\u201d while others shouted that they wanted to be released from lockdowns.<\/p>\n<p>China has put the vast Xinjiang region under <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/sep\/12\/xinjiang-lockdown-chinese-censors-drown-out-posts-about-food-and-medicine-shortages\">some of the country\u2019s longest lockdowns<\/a>, with many of Urumqi\u2019s 4 million residents barred from leaving their homes for 100 days. The city reported about 100 new cases in each of the past two days.<\/p>\n<p>Xinjiang is home to 10 million Uyghurs. Rights groups and western governments have long <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/aug\/31\/china-uyghur-muslims-xinjiang-michelle-bachelet-un\">accused Beijing of abuses<\/a> against the mainly Muslim ethnic minority, including forced labour in internment camps. China strongly rejects such claims.<\/p>\n<p>The Urumqi protests followed a fire in a high-rise building that killed 10 on Thursday night.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities have said the building\u2019s residents had been able to go downstairs, but videos of emergency crews\u2019 efforts, shared on Chinese social media, led many internet users to surmise that residents could not escape in time because the building was partially locked down.<\/p>\n<p>Urumqi officials abruptly held a news conference in the early hours of Saturday, denying that Covid measures had hampered escape and rescue but saying they would investigate further. One said residents could have escaped faster if they had better understood fire safety.<\/p>\n<p>Dali Yang, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, said such a \u201cblame the victim\u201d attitude would make people angrier. \u201cPublic trust will just sink lower,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/nov\/26\/covid-lockdown-protests-break-out-in-western-china-after-deadly-fire\">Continues \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anti-lockdown protests in China gather momentum following the death of ten in a high-rise fire. The Covid lockdown is thought to have contributed to the high death toll<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":261692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78,105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-261690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-china","category-coronavirus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=261690"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":261691,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261690\/revisions\/261691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/261692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=261690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=261690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=261690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}