Dozens of shop owners in Wuhan, China, gathered outside of one of the city’s largest malls on Friday demanding rent relief after months of strict regulations sapped business and bank accounts.
The demonstration is a sign of civil unrest brewing under the authoritarian regime of the Chinese Communist Party. Small business owners have been sitting outside of the Grand Ocean Department Store since quarantine was lifted from the city on Wednesday chanting “exempt rental for a year, or refund the lease,” according to Bloomberg.
Police assigned to monitor the protest assaulted some of shop owners on Wednesday, but have since left them alone, one demonstrator said. Videos of the protest, posted to Chinese social media, have since been removed.
In March, Chinese police forces on the shared border of Jiangxi and Hubei provinces fought for control of the border. Jiangxi forces clashed with Hubei police to keep the border closed to people fleeing the epicenter of the coronavirus. Wuhan is in Hubei province.
Last year, protests rocked Wuhan as thousands of demonstrators clashed with police over a proposal to build an incinerator to clean up mounds of trash that were growing around the city and in landfills. At the time, Chinese officials appeared to take the concerns of the residents seriously by “guarantee[ing] the participation rights” of citizens in public announcements, according to The New York Times. – READ MORE
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