China’s security apparatus tries to quell protests against Covid policy

China’s vast security apparatus moved quickly to quell the mass protests that gripped the country this weekend, with police patrolling the streets, checking mobile phones and even calling some protesters to discourage further action.

On Monday (28) and Tuesday (29), police swamped sites in major cities that had hosted protests over the weekend, as thousands gathered to express their dissatisfaction against the country’s harsh Covid-zero policy – some calling for more democracy and freedom in an extraordinary demonstration against Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

A heavy police presence has discouraged protesters from gathering ever since, while authorities in some cities have adopted surveillance tactics used in the far western region of Xinjiang to intimidate those demonstrating over the weekend.

In what appears to be the first official – albeit thinly veiled – response to the protests, China’s head of internal security pledged at a meeting on Tuesday to “effectively maintain overall social stability”.

Without mentioning the demonstrations, Chen Wenqing urged law enforcement authorities to “resolutely tackle infiltration and sabotage activities by hostile forces, as well as illegal and criminal acts that disrupt social order,” state news agency Xinhua reported.

Harsh language can signal a heavy crackdown ahead. While protests against local situations are raging across China, the current wave of demonstrations is the widest since the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The political defiance is also unprecedented, with some demonstrators openly calling for Xi, the most powerful and authoritarian in decades, step down.

Some of the boldest protests have taken place in Shanghai, where crowds have called for Xi’s ouster two nights in a row. The sidewalks of Urumqi Road – the main site of protests – were completely blocked by high barricades, making it virtually impossible for crowds to gather.

A 10-minute drive away, dozens of police patrolled Praça do Povo – a large square in the center of the city where some residents had planned to gather with blank sheets of paper and candles on Monday night. Police also waited inside a metro station, closing all but one exit, according to a protester at the scene.

THE CNN is not naming any of the protesters in this story to protect them from possible reprisals.

One protester said he saw police checking passersby’s cellphones and asking if they had installed virtual private networks (VPNs) that can be used to bypass China’s internet firewall, or apps such as Twitter and Telegram, which although banned in the country were used by the protesters.

“There were also police dogs. The whole atmosphere was scary,” said the protester.

Later, the protesters decided to move the planned act to another location, but by the time they arrived, the security presence had already been stepped up there, the protester said.

“There were too many police and we had to cancel,” he said.

On Tuesday, a widely circulated video appeared to show police officers checking the mobile phones of passengers on a Shanghai metro train.

Another Shanghai protester told the CNN that they were among “about 80 to 110” people detained by police on Saturday night, adding that they were released 24 hours later.

THE CNN it cannot independently verify the number of protesters detained and it is not clear how many people, if any, remain in custody.

The protester said the detainees had their phones confiscated aboard a bus that took them to a police station, where officers took their fingerprints and retinal patterns.

According to the protester, the police told the detainees that they were used by “malicious people who want to start a color revolution”, using the nationwide protests on the same day as proof of this.

The protester said that the police returned the phone and camera upon release, but the officers deleted the photo album and removed the social media app WeChat.

police calls

In Beijing, police vehicles, many parked with flashing lights, occupied eerily quiet streets on Monday morning in parts of the capital, including the area near Liangmaqiao in central Chaoyang district, where large crowds of protesters had gathered. on Sunday night.

The demonstration, which saw hundreds of people marching along the city’s Third Ring Road, ended peacefully in the early hours of Monday, under the watchful eye of lines of police.

But some protesters received phone calls from the police asking about their participation.

One protester said she received a call from a man who identified himself as a local police officer, asking if she was at the protest and what she saw there. She was also told that if she had any grudges with the authorities, she should complain to the police rather than participating in “illegal activities” such as the protest.

“That night, the police took a calmer approach in dealing with us. But the Communist Party is very good at punishing afterwards,” the protester told the CNN 🇧🇷

She said she did not wear a face mask during the demonstration. “I don’t think Omicron is that scary,” she said. But friends of hers who wore masks at the protest also received calls from the police, she added.

Still, the protester maintained a defiant posture. “It is our legitimate right (to protest) because the constitution stipulates that we have freedom of speech and freedom of assembly,” she said.

Another protester, who had no news from the police, told CNN that the worry that she might be the next to be drafted weighs heavily on her mind.

“I can only take solace in telling myself that many of us took part in the protest, they cannot put a thousand people in prison,” she said.

Meanwhile, some universities in Beijing have provided transport for students to return home early for the winter break and take classes online, citing an effort to reduce Covid risks for students using public transport.

But the arrangement also conveniently discourages students from gathering, following demonstrations at a number of universities over the weekend, including the prestigious Tsinghua University, where hundreds of students chanted “Democracy and the rule of law! Freedom of expression!”

Given the long history of student-led movements in modern China, officials are particularly concerned about political rallies at universities.

Beijing universities have been the source of demonstrations that started the May Fourth Movement in 1919, to which the Chinese Communist Party traces its roots, as well as the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, which were brutally suppressed by the Chinese military. .