Hundreds of students across two universities in Beijing staged anti-Chinese coronavirus lockdown protests on Monday and Tuesday this week, one day before Beijing’s top health official was fired on Wednesday for “serious violations of discipline and laws.”
“Hundreds of students at the China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL) and at Beijing Normal University (Beishida) gathered to show their displeasure with current restrictions on their movements,” Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on May 25.
“The rally was followed by a similar gathering at Beishida on Tuesday [May 24],” according to RFA, which is a U.S. government-funded broadcaster.
RFA cited a social media post on China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform as saying, “some 300 people turned out [at the Beishida protest] on Tuesday evening.”
Beijing health officials have imposed lockdowns on several districts of the metropolis since April 28 as part of an ongoing effort to contain its latest epidemic of the Chinese coronavirus. Communist Party officials locked down Beijing’s Haidian district, which contains both CUPL and Beishida universities, in recent days. The movement restrictions included a suspension of in-person classes at the two universities starting on May 23, according to RFA.
The broadcaster on May 25 cited an anonymous source as saying, “most of the students [at CUPL and Beishida universities] were angry over the decision to stop face-to-face classes, while still requiring students’ presence on campus to take part in online classes.”
News that college students across Haidian district were protesting local lockdown edicts this week came shortly before the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on May 26 that Chinese Communist Party officials had recently sacked Beijing’s municipal health commission director, Yu Luming.
Citing a May 25 report by the Communist Party-run Beijing Daily, the SCMP relayed that Yu was “stripped of his role at the health commission and as vice-chairman of the Beijing committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference – a top political advisory body.”
Health workers wear protective suits as they stand outside a tent while waiting to perform nucleic acid tests to detect COVID-19 on local workers at a makeshift testing site in Haidian District on April 26, 2022, in Beijing, China. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
The newspaper noted that Yu’s dismissal was “apparently not related to the ongoing Covid-19 [Chinese coronavirus] pandemic as the Communist Party’s top anti-corruption watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, announced last month that he was under investigation.”
Beijing has accused Yu of alleged crimes including “serious violations of discipline and laws,” which is a euphemism often used by the Chinese Communist Party for “corruption or political mistakes,” according to the SCMP.
Chinese citizens and, allegedly, some unnamed Communist Party officials, have increasingly expressed opposition to Beijing’s “zero tolerance” policy toward the Chinese coronavirus in recent weeks. Health authorities lock down entire residential blocks and districts over relatively few confirmed local cases in accordance with the policy, in addition to forcibly quarantining residents in state-run isolation facilities for weeks at a time.
Students at Beijing’s Peking University staged a protest against their school’s “zero tolerance” policy measures on May 15 after officials erected metal fences outside their dormitories without notice, essentially trapping them inside.
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