Many people in China’s Xinjiang region can’t leave to visit their hometowns during the week-long “October First” holiday—officially “National Day”—under the regime’s restrictive zero-COVID-19 control measures. Protests broke out against the indefinite lockdowns.
Most of Xinjiang, which is home to an ethnic Uyghur majority, has been under COVID-19 lockdown for more than 50 days.
Mr. Guo, who is from Sichuan Province but working in Urumqi, Xinjiang, told The Epoch Times on Sept. 29 that because his local area is still under lockdown, he isn’t allowed to return home to visit his family during the “October First” holiday.
“Nobody knows when the lockdown will be lifted. We have to do PCR tests every day, are locked up at home, and are not allowed to leave the community. Everyone is going crazy. It’s miserable.”
Stuck Without Food
Guo said that because of the strict restrictions on movement, it’s very difficult to return home from Xinjiang.“Going back to my hometown (Sichuan) is also troublesome,” he said. “It’s not just because I have to pay for the quarantine; the key is that people there are afraid of those who return from Xinjiang [where there are reported COVID-19 cases]. It is also difficult to leave Xinjiang now. There are checkpoints in many places.”
Guo told The Epoch Times that he finally decided not to return to his hometown to visit his family this year, amid the prospect of not having food in Xinjiang.
Protests Against Indefinite Lockdown
Mr. Li, another Urumqi resident who provided only his surname for fear of reprisal, told The Epoch Times on Sept. 29 that the local areas have been under lockdown for more than two months. Recently, people in many places took to the streets to protest and were suppressed.“Because many people do not have food and sources of income, they protested in both district and residential communities to demand the lifting of the lockdown,” Li said. “During the protest, pandemic control staff and residents clashed, and they took the residents away, dragging them by their necks!”
On Sept. 25, a large number of people rushed to the streets of Wangjialiang in Urumqi, to protest against the nearly two-month lockdown. Someone knelt in front of government epidemic control staff and cried that “the whole family can’t live anymore.” The video quickly went viral. Under the pressure of public opinion, local authorities lifted the lockdown in that area.
“Although lockdowns have been lifted in a few communities, it continues in many other neighborhoods,” Li said. “We have been quarantined at home for more than two months, and strangely, some residents in lockdown still tested positive. Many people just have a cold but test positive for COVID. It caused others living in the same neighborhood to be locked in at home as well.
“The community office staff even told us that they did not understand why some residents still test positive even when all the residents have been quarantined at home for two months.”
He also said that the lockdown seems indefinite.
“The government office simply ignores our phone calls,” Li said. “You ask them when the lockdown will be lifted, and they just say ‘wait.’ Now, only [government appointed] volunteers are allowed to go out, and everyone else has to stay in at home.”
