Residents in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region have complained on social media about what they say are harsh COVID-19 lockdown measures in the sensitive region after a local outbreak.
China had largely brought domestic transmission under control through lockdowns, travel restrictions and testing, but sporadic regional outbreaks have emerged.
A new cluster in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, in the middle of last month prompted fresh restrictions, with 902 cases officially reported.
Photo: Reuters
Officials said this month they had “effectively contained” the spread of the Urumqi cluster, and there have been no new cases reported in the past eight days.
However, hundreds of residents have gone on to local social media forums in the past few days to complain about harsh conditions.
With some of the comments removed, users tried to also voice their complaints on local forums on the Sina Weibo (微博) platform in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Social media users shared photographs of front doors sealed with steel crowbars, and locks installed by community workers.
“Why can’t prefectures with no cases remove the lockdown? Why do you need to lock down the whole of Xinjiang?” read one comment on Weibo, which received thousands of likes.
“Doors have been sealed, this has brought huge inconvenience to workers and people’s lives. Prices of daily items have risen ... many things I buy are expired” read another.
Some residents also wrote that they were forced by authorities to take Chinese medicine daily, and were required to film themselves doing so.
One video from Saturday showed dozens of high-rise residents in Urumqi yelling from their windows in despair.
Stranded migrant workers, university students, business travelers and tourists also complained about not being able to leave Xinjiang.
“I have even taken three nucleic acid tests ... but community workers won’t let me leave,” one user wrote on a message board run by the state-run People’s Daily.
Urumqi authorities yesterday said that lockdowns would be eased in areas that had no virus cases, according to a report in the state-run tabloid Global Times.
About half of Xinjiang’s more than 21 million people are ethnic Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims, many of whom complain of decades of political and religious oppression by the Chinese Communist Party, which the government denies.
Activists have accused the Chinese government of incarcerating about 1 million Uighurs and other Turkic people in Xinjiang camps.
Beijing has described them as vocational training centers to counter Islamic radicalism.
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
Taiwanese Olympic badminton men’s doubles gold medalist Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) and his new partner, Chiu Hsiang-chieh (邱相榤), clinched the men’s doubles title at the Yonex Taipei Open yesterday, becoming the second Taiwanese team to win a title in the tournament. Ranked 19th in the world, the Taiwanese duo defeated Kang Min-hyuk and Ki Dong-ju of South Korea 21-18, 21-15 in a pulsating 43-minute final to clinch their first doubles title after teaming up last year. Wang, the men’s doubles gold medalist at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, partnered with Chiu in August last year after the retirement of his teammate Lee Yang
The Philippines yesterday criticized a “high-risk” maneuver by a Chinese vessel near the disputed Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) in a rare incident involving warships from the two navies. The Scarborough Shoal — a triangular chain of reefs and rocks in the contested South China Sea — has been a flash point between the countries since China seized it from the Philippines in 2012. Taiwan also claims the shoal. Monday’s encounter took place approximately 11.8 nautical miles (22km) southeast” of the Scarborough Shoal, the Philippine military said, during ongoing US-Philippine military exercises that Beijing has criticized as destabilizing. “The Chinese frigate BN 554 was
RSS