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A protester who hung two protest banners–one of which known as for the removing of Chinese language chief Xi Jinping — on a Beijing overpass on the eve of the ruling Chinese language Communist Get together (CCP)’s twentieth Nationwide Congress is being hailed as a hero on social media, as authorities blocked two rock songs getting used abroad to sing his praises.
The protester, seen in a video being loaded right into a police automobile Thursday, has been named as Peng Lifa, who used the deal with Peng Zaizhou on social media, in a reference to an historic essay describing the individuals because the water that holds up the boat of presidency, and may overturn it if they’re sad with its rule.
Whereas RFA has been unable to substantiate the id of the protester independently, content material posted earlier to Peng’s social media accounts was in step with the tone of his banners, which had been displayed from the Sitong flyover on Beijing’s Third Ring Street on Thursday.
“Take away the traitor-dictator Xi Jinping!” learn one banner, video and photographs of which had been rapidly posted to social media, solely to be deleted. A submit linked from the account known as for strikes and sophistication boycotts to take away Xi.
“Meals, not PCR checks. Freedom, not lockdowns. Reforms, not the Cultural Revolution. Elections not leaders,” learn the second, including: “Dignity, not lies. Residents, not slaves.”
Peng’s whereabouts remained unclear, and key phrases and accounts linked to the protest had been quickly deleted from China’s tightly managed social media platforms, because the ruling celebration’s well-oiled censorship machine swung into motion.
Searches for “Haidian,” the district the place the banners appeared, and “hero” had been all blocked by Friday, amid stories that social media customers who talked concerning the incident had been getting their accounts shut down.
Authorities filters had been additionally blocking entry to a rock ballad by Hong Kong pop star Eason Chan titled “Warrior of the Darkness,” the theme to animated sequence Arcane: League of Legends, which incorporates the lyric “I really like that you just stroll the darkish alleys, love that you do not kneel to anybody, love that you just look despair within the face however by no means cry.”
Traces of a tune launched just a few years in the past titled Sitong Bridge by Mr. Graceless had been additionally quickly faraway from China’s tightly managed web. The Baidu search engine web page for the tune carried solely the message: “Oops. The web page you had been visiting doesn’t exist” when accessed on Friday.
![The protester [in orange] who hung the banners off a Beijing overpass on Oct. 13, 2022 is placed in a police car. Credit: Screenshot from Reuters video](https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/ccp-bridgeman-10142022161722.html/eng_man_bridgeman_10142022-2.jpg/@@images/67ab702e-dc14-43c7-aea4-f1ff757b1a7d.jpeg "ENG_MAN_BridgeMan_10142022.2.jpg")
Deleted and blocked
WeChat customers in mainland China mentioned the platform was abuzz after the protest, however that many feedback and posts on the subject had been being deleted, and their senders blocked from group chats.
Feedback seen by RFA on the Peng Zaizhou accounts learn: “You’re a hero. I respect you,” and “I hope you get residence protected!”
The Peng Zaizhou Twitter account on Thursday commented on a tweet from the U.S.-based China Digital Occasions, earlier than the banners appeared: “We’re all on the identical path. We’re about to take motion. I hope you’ll be able to retweet this.”
“Inform dictator Xi Jinping that there are nonetheless some males left in China who stroll the trail to freedom,” the remark mentioned.
The Twitter account was nonetheless seen on Friday, however content material referring to the banner had been taken down.
Distinguished 1989 scholar protest chief Wang Dan mentioned the protester was “the brand new Tank Man,” in a reference to the lone shopper who confronted down a column of Individuals’s Liberation Military (PLA) tanks in the course of the navy crackdown on weeks of mass protests in Tiananmen Sq..
The truth that Xi will probably be re-elected for an additional time period has made numerous individuals really feel determined, he mentioned in a touch upon his Fb web page.
“Solely beneath that despair will there be resistance,” Wang wrote. “This is not the primary time somebody has come ahead, and it will not be the final … Xi Jinping’s rebellious actions are positive to spark extra political agitation.”
An officer who answered the telephone on the Dazhongsi police station, within the neighborhood of the Sitong flyover, and an officer who answered the telephone on the Haidian district police division each declined to remark when contacted by RFA on Friday, saying they did not know concerning the scenario.
Calls to the mobile phone of a 2021 scientific journal article creator utilizing the title Peng Zaizhou rang unanswered on Friday.
‘I noticed it’
A Chinese language social media consumer who gave solely the pseudonym Hu mentioned posts and photographs linked to the flyover protest had been being blocked very quick on WeChat.
“I did not know the whole story of what occurred … however I could not enquire too carefully within the WeChat group, and no person dared to clarify it to me intimately,” Hu instructed RFA.
“The second anybody mentions the specifics, the whole group and account get blocked by WeChat. We’ll discover out about it by exterior channels,” Hu mentioned, in a reference to circumventing the Nice Firewall to learn uncensored information on abroad websites.
Hu mentioned Peng’s banner had expressed what many in China are considering, however haven’t any strategy to categorical below widespread censorship and intimidation.
One other social media consumer who gave the pseudonym Tang mentioned individuals check with the incident by saying merely: “I noticed it.”
Tang mentioned he did not suppose the protest was carried out by a lone activist.
“The one who hung the banner posted a hyperlink to a web site,” he mentioned. “Every little thing he did was throughout the scope of the structure of the Individuals’s Republic of China.”
“He requested for the recall of the CCP normal secretary [Xi Jinping] and in addition put ahead his personal views on find out how to elect [a new leader,” Tang said.
“This is all legal and in accordance with the party constitution, so I think he is someone within the [party or government],” he mentioned.
‘Bridge-watchers’ needed
The protest sparked an immediate tightening of safety from authorities in Beijing, with dozens of cops going door-to-door in close by buildings to verify IDs.
The Beijing metropolis authorities dispatched militia personnel to direct visitors and guard all overpasses and pedestrian bridges around the clock to stop any comparable incidents.
District governments throughout the town posted recruitment adverts looking for “bridge-watchers” — absolutely vaccinated males aged 18-55, taller than 1.68 meters — to protect potential protest websites around the clock for 320 yuan a day over 15 days, greater than the period of the celebration congress.
Political commentator Si Ling mentioned authorities censors at the moment are capable of filter individuals’s messages in actual time.
“We all know that the Chinese language authorities has developed a robust key phrase filtering system, and that delicate phrases [like Sitong bridge or 20th National Congress] are deleted in seconds,” Si instructed RFA.
“No less than some individuals at the moment are a bit extra awake than they had been earlier than.”
In Hong Kong, the place no Nice Firewall but limits what web customers can do or see on-line, the town’s mainstream media did not report on the protest.
A full report from pro-democracy web site HK01.com was taken down just a few hours after being posted.
“That is much like mainland China with regards to information about [the Tiananmen massacre of] June 4 [1989],” impartial journalist Lam Yin-bong instructed RFA.
“No one talks about it, no person mentions it, and no person writes about it,” he mentioned. “They simply act prefer it by no means occurred, and steadily, it begins to really feel prefer it by no means occurred.”
Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
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