Beijing boils as BBC journalist arrested amid national anti-government protests
WILL GLASGOW - NOVEMBER 28, 2022
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A BBC journalist was arrested, beaten and kicked by Chinese police as China’s biggest anti-government protests since Tiananmen in 1989 surged into Beijing on Sunday night.
Hundreds of protesters gathered on Sunday afternoon at Tsinghua University, the prestigious institution in Beijing where President Xi studied Marxist theory.
At least another thousand people gathered on the south bank of Beijing’s Liangma river, near one of the capital’s diplomatic precincts.
“We want freedom! We want human rights!” they chanted into the early hours of Monday morning.
They were surrounded by a tremendous police presence, which grew as the demonstration continued into the early hours of Monday morning.
China’s police were more aggressive in Shanghai where a group of protesters returned to the site of a Saturday night protest, images of which overwhelmed China’s online censorship regime. It was to hold a vigil to mark the death of 10 people in a fire in Urumqi, a city in Xinjiang.
BBC journalist Ed Lawrence was roughed up, handcuffed and detained by Shanghai police while covering the protest.
Chinese authorities told the BBC they arrested Lawrence for his own good, “in case he caught Covid from the crowd,” according to the BBC.
“We do not consider this a credible explanation,” the BBC said in a statement.
Although he was released after several hours, the BBC said it was “extremely concerned” about his treatment, as Lawrence was in the middle of “carrying out his duties”.
On Sunday night, protests also broke out in Wuhan, Chengdu and Guangzhou, three megacities in China’s centre, west and south.
They followed similar unrest on Saturday in Nanjing, China’s republican capital before the communists took power, and Xi’an, a former imperial Chinese capital.
The widespread outpouring of public anger began in reaction to a fire in Urumqi, Xinjiang, last week which killed ten people.
Many in China have linked the tragedy to Mr Xi’s signature “dynamic zero Covid” policy, which they believe stopped victims from escaping the flames, although Chinese authorities deny this.
Since then the protests have spiralled to encompass complaints about the Chinese government’s draconian Covid regime, quashing of freedom of speech and Mr Xi’s dictatorial rule.
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