Days after protests erupted in China over the country’s strict zero-COVID policy, there are signs the government is beginning to ease its testing requirements and quarantine rules in some cities, but it is unclear whether the measures will go far enough to appease those who have been in lockdown for so long.
Some called for more protests in China this weekend, but it remains to be seen if people will take to the streets like they did last weekend, when demonstrations broke out in more than 20 cities in a display of civil disobedience rarely seen in China.
“It’s hard to predict” what will happen this weekend, Sophie Richardson, the China director at Human Rights Watch, told VOA’s Mandarin Service.
Few people last weekend had been expecting to see Chinese residents “come out onto the streets in cities across the country, unmasked and calling for an end to lockdowns,” she said.
“The authorities have certainly made clear that they don’t want more of those — both by dispersing, surveilling and detaining some people, but also by agreeing in some areas to some relaxations on COVID-19 restrictions,” Richardson said.
Chinese officials said this week they are taking steps to ease coronavirus restrictions. While officials did not publicly mention the protesters, the move was widely seen as an effort to ease public anger over the government’s COVID-19 restrictions and head off any more demonstrations.
Source: Voice of America