But the protests continue
Despite these methods, the Chinese government has not been able to completely eliminate dissent against anti-covid measures.
On Monday, Chinese students held a protest against a lockdown due to a case of coronavirus at a university in the eastern part of the country.
After the demonstrations, numerous cities announced the end of large-scale PCR tests or the isolation of infected people in quarantine centers.
But the restrictions persist. According to the Japanese bank Nomura, 53 cities in the country, which are home to a third of China’s 1.4 billion inhabitants, still limit movement to their population.
Videos posted on social media Tuesday and geolocated by AFP showed a crowd of students gathering at Nanjing University of Technology on Monday night.
In the footage, the young people demand to be allowed to leave campus. “The power is given to you by the students, not by yourselves,” one person yells in the video. “They are at the service of the students!” she insists.
A third-year student who requested anonymity confirmed that the protest took place after the university announced it would close campus for five days after detecting a case of covid.
The young woman told AFP that her classmates were unhappy about the poor communication from the university and feared they would be blocked on campus during the winter break.
In the images, the crowd argues with representatives of the university and calls for the resignation of the directors of the center.
Many Chinese universities remain under lockdown regimes in which students must submit an official request to leave and visitors are prohibited.
With information from AFP