A rare anti-Covid demonstration took place today in Beijing with authorities removing some Protest banners also against President Xi, Less than three days before the opening of the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of China, which should be entrusted with an unprecedented third term of the General Secretariat. The story, which took place in the early afternoon, spread on social media: on the banners placed on the Sitong Bridge, there were several slogans, including a call to expel Xi (defined as a “traitor”) and for the end of the strict policies to contain Covid-19, Based on multiple photos and videos posted on Twitter.

In videos on Twitter – blocked in China – he also appears The intervention of the police who allegedly arrested a man. In a short video, there was also smoke rising from the road at the point where the signs were hung, seeming to attract the attention of drivers and pedestrians. The area is located northwest of the Chinese capital, close to the Zhongguancun university district.

On the spot, an overpass on Beijing’s Third Ring Road in Haidian District, ANSA was later able to verify the presence of reinforced police garrisons throughout the district. “We don’t want Covid checks, we want to eat; We don’t want lockdowns, we want to be free, wrote on a banner that reads. The “zero-Covid” policy, heavily sponsored by Xi, has caused huge economic damage with total and partial blockades and sparked widespread frustration in Chinese cities.

Even in Beijing, where political issues are taboo, It’s easy to catch spontaneous and unwanted tantrums, even from unexpected people. “We want voices, not leaders; we want dignity, not lies; we are citizens, not slaves,” read another, relating Xi’s authoritarian shift that could theoretically stay in power for life. On Mandarin social networks, starting with Weibo (Chinese Twitter), searches on “Sitong Bridge” yielded no results, while within a few hours, hashtags evaporated in “Haidian District”, in the censorship of the Great Firewall. “#Haidian #tiny spark,” one Weibo user wrote, referring to Mao Zedong’s popular revolutionary saying: “A small spark can ignite the prairie.”