Tag Archives: Political and civil unrest

World

Protests against Covid controls erupt across China

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Demonstrators against Covid restrictions hold blank sheets of paper during a protest in Beijing in the early hours of Monday, Nov. 28.

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BEIJING — Rare protests broke out across China over the weekend as groups of people vented their frustration over the zero-Covid policy.

The unrest came as infections surged, prompting more local Covid controls, while a central government policy change earlier this month had raised hopes of a gradual easing. Nearly three years of controls have dragged down the economy. Youth unemployment has neared 20%.

People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official newspaper, ran a front page op-ed Monday on the need to make Covid controls more targeted and effective, while removing those that should be removed.

In Beijing, many apartment communities successfully convinced local management they had no legal basis for a lockdown. That came after more and more compounds in the capital city on Friday had abruptly forbade residents from leaving.

On Sunday, municipal authorities said temporary controls on movement should not last more than 24 hours.

Over the last three days, students staged protests at many universities, while people took to the streets in parts of Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan and Lanzhou, among other cities, according to videos widely shared on social media. The videos could not all be independently verified.

Demonstrations initially started in Urumqi, Xinjiang, on Friday after a building fire killed 10 people the prior day — in an area that had been locked down for months. The narrative on social media centered on how Covid controls prevented residents and rescue workers from saving lives.

While it’s not clear what exactly caused the deaths, local authorities subsequently declared the Covid risk had subsided, and began relaxing controls.

In Shanghai on Saturday, a vigil for the Urumqi deaths turned into a protest against Covid and the ruling Communist Party of China. Some unverified videos also showed calls for President Xi Jinping to step down.

Videos on social media showed police arresting some protesters.

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Many of the demonstrators have held up blank sheets of white paper. Some have sung the national anthem and “The Internationale,” a socialist song associated with the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.

Notably, social media also showed protesters at the prestigious Tsinghua University on Sunday.

It was not immediately clear whether the protests reached a meaningful scale in a country of 1.4 billion people, or whether a wide demographic participated.

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World

Iran issues first known death sentence linked to recent protests

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A demonstration of solidarity with Iranian protesters at the Brandenburg Gate in Germany.

Christoph Soeder | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

As Iran enters its eighth week of public unrest following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, the country’s Revolutionary Court issued its first known death sentence on Sunday over participation in the anti-regime protests.

According to the judiciary’s website Mizan Online, the unidentified accused set a government building on fire, and was sentenced on the charge of “disturbing public order and comfort, community and colluding to commit a crime against national security.”

Jail terms ranging from five to 10 years have been handed down to five other individuals, the ruling stated, on charges of national security and public order violations.

The rulings are subject to appeal, and further details of the case will not be published until the final verdict.

At least 326 people have been killed in one of the largest sustained challenges to Iran’s regime since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, according to Norway-based nongovernmental organization Iran Human Rights.

Iranian demonstrators take to the streets of the capital Tehran during a protest for Mahsa Amini on Sept. 21, days after she died in police custody.

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The use of capital punishment is a new instrument in the government’s toolbox to squash antigovernment demonstrations.

An estimated 14,000 people have been arrested and detained since the protests started almost two months ago, according to the United Nations. About 1,000 people in Tehran were charged for their alleged involvement in the unrest.

Prior to Sunday, people involved in the protests were charged with crimes carrying the death penalty, namely “waging war against God,” and “corruption on earth.”

“We urge Iranian authorities to stop using the death penalty as a tool to squash protests,” the U.N. said in a statement, reiterating the organization’s call to release protesters.

Ramin Forouzandeh, an Iranian PhD candidate based in Toronto, told CNBC that while he believes lawmakers have the “‘desire’ to hang every protester,” they fear that doing so will ignite more serious waves of protests.

“I think they are testing their limits. I can say with confidence that if the protests calm down, they will start hanging the prisoners and double down on repression.”

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Business

Hong Kong’s largest IPOs for 2022 Onewo and Leapmotor trading debut

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A gong inside the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. China Vanke’s subsidiary Onewo and EV maker Zhejiang Leapmotor Technology began trading on the Hong Kong market on Thursday.

Paul Yeung | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Leapmotor and Onewo, among Hong Kong’s largest completed initial public offerings of the year, dropped on their first day of trade in the city on Thursday.

Chinese electric vehicle maker Leapmotor’s shares tumbled as much as 32% from its offer price of 48 Hong Kong dollars ($6.11) per share. It last traded 27.7% lower.

Shares of Onewo fell 7.9% from its offer price of 49.35 Hong Kong dollars ($6.29) per share in early trade, and was last 4.76% lower.

The moves come after the companies’ shares reportedly fell in grey market trading the previous day.

The broader Hang Seng index was last up 1.49%.

The retail tranche of shares for both initial public offerings were undersubscribed, according to their respective filings. Around 82% of Onewo’s shares for the local market were bought, and only 16% of Leapmotor were purchased, the filings said.

Unsold shares were allocated to international buyers.

Onewo, a subsidiary of property developer China Vanke, raised 5.6 billion Hong Kong dollars ($713.5 million), while Leapmotor raised 6.06 billion Hong Kong dollars ($771.7 million).

Data from the Hong Kong Exchange (HKEX) show there were 48 new listings in Hong Kong from January to August in 2022, raising a total of 56 billion Hong Kong dollars ($7.1 billion) – a steep drop from the same period in 2021, in which there were 69 new listings that raised 271.4 billion Hong Kong dollars ($34.6 billion).

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World

Crowd confronts cleric at Iran tower collapse that killed 32

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Protesters angry over a building collapse in southwestern Iran that killed at least 32 people shouted down an emissary sent by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sparking a crackdown that saw riot police club demonstrators and fire tear gas, according to online videos analyzed on Monday.

The demonstration directly challenged the Iranian government’s response to the disaster a week ago as pressure rises in the Islamic Republic over rising food prices and other economic woes amid the unravelling of its nuclear deal with world powers.

While the protests so far still appear to be leaderless, even Arab tribes in the region seemed to join them Sunday, raising the risk of the unrest intensifying. Already, tensions between Tehran and the West have spiked after Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard on Friday seized two Greek oil tankers seized at sea.

Ayatollah Mohsen Heidari AleKasir tried to address upset mourners near the site of the 10-story Metropol Building but hundreds gathered Sunday night instead booed and shouted.

Surrounded by bodyguards, the ayatollah, in his 60s, tried to continue but couldn’t.

“What’s happening?” the cleric stage-whispered to a bodyguard, who then leaned in to tell him something.

The cleric then tried to address the crowd again: “My dears, please keep calm, as a sign of respect to Abadan, its martyrs and the dear (victims) the whole Iranian nation is mourning tonight.”

The crowd responded by shouting: “Shameless!”

A live broadcast on state television of the event then cut out. Demonstrators later chanted: “I will kill; I will kill the one who killed my brother!”

The Tehran-based daily newspaper Hamshahri and the semiofficial Fars news agency said the protesters attacked the platform where state TV had set up its camera, cutting off its broadcast.

Police ordered the crowd not to chant slogans against the Islamic Republic and then ordered them to leave, calling their rally illegal. Video later showed officers confronting and clubbing demonstrators as clouds of tear gas rose. At least one officer fired what appeared to be a shotgun, though it wasn’t clear if it was live fire or so-called “beanbag” rounds designed to stun.

It wasn’t immediately clear if anyone was injured or if police made any arrests.

The details in the videos corresponded to known features of Abadan, located some 660 kilometers (410 miles) southwest of the capital, Tehran. Foreign-based Farsi-language television channels described tear gas and other shots being fired.

Independent newsgathering remains extremely difficult in Iran. During unrest, Iran has disrupted internet and telephone communications to affected areas, while also limiting the movement of journalists inside of the country. Reporters Without Borders describes the Islamic Republic as the third-worst country in the world to be a journalist — behind only North Korea and Eritrea.

Following the tower collapse in Abadan last Monday, authorities have acknowledged the building’s owner and corrupt government officials had allowed construction to continue at the Metropol Building despite concerns over its shoddy workmanship. Authorities have arrested 13 people as part of a broad investigation into the disaster, including the city’s mayor.

Rescue teams pulled three more bodies from the rubble on Monday, bringing the death toll in the collapse to 32, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. Authorities fear more people could be trapped under the debris.

The deadly collapse has raised questions about the safety of similar buildings in the country and underscored an ongoing crisis in Iranian construction projects. The collapse reminded many of the 2017 fire and collapse of the iconic Plasco building in Tehran that killed 26 people.

In Tehran, the city’s emergency department warned that 129 high-rise buildings in the capital remained “unsafe,” based on a survey in 2017. The country’s prosecutor-general, Mohammad Javad Motazeri, has promised to address the issue immediately.

Abadan has also seen disasters in the past. In 1978, an intentionally set fire at Cinema Rex — just a few blocks away from the collapsed building in modern Abadan — killed hundreds. Anger over the blaze triggered unrest across Iran’s oil-rich regions and helped lead to the Islamic Revolution that toppled Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Abadan, in Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan province, is home to Iran’s Arab minority, who long have complained about being treated as second-class citizens in the Persian nation. Arab separatists in the region have launched attacks on pipelines and security forces in the past. Videos and the newspaper Hamshahri noted that two tribes had come into the city to support the protests.

Meanwhile, one of the two Greek tankers seized by Iran on Friday turned on its tracking devices for the first time since the incident. The oil tanker Prudent Warrior gave a satellite position Monday off Bandar Abbas, a major Iranian port, according to data from MarineTraffic.com analyzed by The Associated Press.

Five armed guards were on the Prudent Warrior on Monday, though Iranian authorities were allowing the crew to use their mobile phones, said George Vakirtzis, the chief financial officer of the ship’s manager Polembros Shipping.

“The whole thing is political and in the hands of the Greek Foreign Office and the Iranian government,” Vakirtzis told the AP.

Monday night, Iranian state TV aired footage of the raid on the Prudent Warrior. The video showed masked Guard troops land a helicopter on the ship, then storm the civilian ship’s bridge armed with assault rifles.

It remains unclear where the second ship, the Delta Poseidon, is.

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Follow Jon Gambrell and Isabel DeBre on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP and www.twitter.com/isabeldebre.



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US

Afghans protest US move to unfreeze $3.5B for 9/11 victims

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Demonstrators in Afghanistan’s capital have condemned President Joe Biden’s order freeing up $3.5 billion in Afghan assets held in the U.S. for families of America’s 9/11 victims

February 12, 2022, 8:46 PM

4 min read

KABUL, Afghanistan — Demonstrators in Afghanistan’s capital on Saturday condemned President Joe Biden’s order freeing up $3.5 billion in Afghan assets held in the U.S. for families of America’s 9/11 victims — saying the money belongs to Afghans.

Protesters who gathered outside Kabul’s grand Eid Gah mosque asked America for financial compensation for the tens of thousands of Afghans killed during the last 20 years of war in Afghanistan.

Biden’s order, signed Friday, allocates another $3.5 billion in Afghan assets for humanitarian aid to a trust fund to be managed by the U.N. to provide aid to Afghans. The country’s economy is teetering on the brink of collapse after international money stopped coming into Afghanistan with the arrival in mid-August of the Taliban.

Afghanistan’s Central Bank called on Biden to reverse his order and release the funds to it, saying in a statement Saturday that they belonged to the people of Afghanistan and not a government, party or group.

Torek Farhadi, a financial adviser to Afghanistan’s former U.S.-backed government, questioned the U.N. managing Afghan Central Bank reserves. He said those funds are not meant for humanitarian aid but “to back up the country’s currency, help in monetary policy and manage the country’s balance of payment.”

He also questioned the legality of Biden’s order.

“These reserves belong to the people of Afghanistan, not the Taliban … Biden’s decision is one-sided and does not match with international law,” said Farhadi. “No other country on Earth makes such confiscation decisions about another country’s reserves.”

White House officials said there is no simple way to make all the frozen assets available quickly to the Afghan people.

Sept. 11 victims and their families have legal claims against the Taliban and the $7 billion in the U.S. banking system. Courts would have to sign off before the release of humanitarian assistance money and decide whether to tap the frozen funds for paying out those claims.

In all, Afghanistan has about $9 billion in assets overseas, including the $7 billion in the United States. The rest is mostly in Germany, the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland.

“What about our Afghan people who gave many sacrifices and thousands of losses of lives?” asked the demonstration’s organizer, Abdul Rahman, a civil society activist.

Rahman said he planned to organize more demonstrations across the capital to protest Biden’s order. “This money belongs to the people of Afghanistan, not to the United States. This is the right of Afghans,” he said.

Misspelled placards in English accused the United States of being cruel and of stealing the money of Afghans.

Taliban political spokesman Mohammad Naeem accused the Biden administration in a tweet late Friday of showing “the lowest level of humanity … of a country and a nation.”

Biden’s Friday order generated a social media storm with Twitter saying #USA—stole—money—from—afghan was trending among Afghans. Tweets repeatedly pointed out that the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals, not Afghans.

Obaidullah Baheer, a lecturer at the American University in Afghanistan and a social activist, tweeted: “Let’s remind the world that #AfghansDidntCommit911 and that #BidenStealingAfgMoney!”

Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was brought to Afghanistan by Afghan warlords after being expelled from Sudan in 1996. Those same warlords would later ally with the U.S.-led coalition to oust the Taliban in 2001. However, it was Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar who refused to hand over bin Laden to the U.S. after the devastating 9/11 attacks that killed thousands.

Still, some analysts took to Twitter to question Biden’s order.

Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the U.S.-based Wilson Center, called Biden’s order to divert $3.5 billion away from Afghanistan “heartless.”

“It’s great that $3.5B in new humanitarian aid for Afghanistan has been freed up. But to take another $3.5B that belongs to the Afghan people, and divert it elsewhere–that is misguided and quite frankly heartless,” he tweeted.

Kugelman also said the opposition to Biden’s order crossed Afghanistan’s wide political divide.

“I can’t remember the last time so many people of such vastly different worldviews were so united over a US policy decision on Afghanistan,” he tweeted.

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World

Photos of anti-Covid protests in Europe

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A demonstrator lights a smoke bomb during a rally held by Austria’s far-right Freedom Party FPOe against the measures taken to curb the Covid pandemic, at Maria Theresien Platz square in Vienna, Austria on November 20, 2021.

JOE KLAMAR | AFP | Getty Images

Protests against fresh Covid-19 restrictions have rocked Europe over the weekend, with demonstrations breaking out in places such as Brussels, Vienna, Rome and Amsterdam.

There were protests in Vienna on Sunday after Austria entered its fourth national lockdown due to the current pandemic wave, with people now being asked to work from home and non-essential shops closing.

More than 50,000 people staged a protest against the measures taken to stem the Covid-19 pandemic in Vienna, Austria, 20 November 2021.

Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Protesters gather in front of the Gare du Nord in Brussels on Nov.21. Police estimate 35,000 people gathered to protest against the Covid pass, which they consider to be divisive.

Thierry Monasse | Getty Images News | Getty Images

In Belgium, protesters clashed with police after tens of thousands of people gathered in a march through Brussels’ city center on Sunday. The “Protest for Freedom” march, primarily aimed at protesting against stricter Covid restrictions, was attended by around 35,000 people, the police estimated.

Meanwhile, demonstrations continued for a third day in the Netherlands, following violent scenes and dozens of arrests in Rotterdam, with thousands more gathering in Amsterdam over the weekend.

After Rotterdam’s riots, there was further trouble in various neighborhoods in The Hague on Saturday night, as well as reports of disorder in several other smaller Dutch towns.

People march during a protest against the latest measures to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, despite the cancellation of the event after violence marred protests in Rotterdam, on November 20, 2021 in Amsterdam.

EVERT ELZINGA | AFP | Getty Images

Over 50 people were arrested in Rotterdam on Friday after fierce demonstrations that were described as an “orgy of violence” by the city’s mayor.

Dutch police used water cannons and fired warning shots, injuring at least two people, after rioters against the country’s partial Covid lockdown — imposed amid surging cases — torched a police car, set off fireworks and hurled rocks at police officers.

This photograph taken on November 20, 2021 shows burned bikes after a protest against the partial lockdown and against the 2G government policy in Rotterdam.

JEFFREY GROENEWEG | AFP | Getty Images

Many Dutch people oppose the lockdown measures that have seen shops, bars and restaurants forced to close at 8 p.m.

Covid passes, which restrict access to venues like museums and bars to the vaccinated or recently recovered from Covid, are now compulsory in more venues. Protesters are opposed to government plans to make Covid passes mandatory in more sectors of public life. For now, tighter Covid measures are due to last until at least Dec. 4.

A sign protesting against Italy’s ‘Green Pass’ on November 20, 2021 in Rome.

Stefano Montesi – Corbis | Corbis News | Getty Images

Covid passes are also fueling protests in Rome, where large crowds gathered this weekend, objecting to the enforcement of Italy’s version of the Covid passport, the “Green Pass,” which became mandatory for all Italian workers on Oct. 15.

Workers must either show proof of vaccination, a negative test or recent recovery from infection or they could be suspended from work without pay or face a fine.

People protest during a demonstration organized by ‘No Green Pass’ and ‘No Vax’ movements against the Green Pass Covid-19 health certificate, at the Circo Massimo in Rome on November 20, 2021.

Stefano Montesi – Corbis | Corbis News | Getty Images

Thousands of people also marched in Croatia’s capital Zagreb on Saturday, demonstrating against mandatory vaccinations for public sector workers and Covid passes.

Thousands of people stage a protest against Covid-19 measures in Zagreb, Croatia on 20 November 2021.

Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

In Germany, politicians are beginning to debate the need for mandatory vaccinations, a move which could prompt protests if implemented.

The country’s seven-day coronavirus incidence rate has hit record highs in the past two weeks, while only around 69% of the population is fully vaccinated.

Read more: Germany announces new Covid restrictions for the unvaccinated as infection rate hits record

The government imposed nationwide restrictions against the unvaccinated last week, but lawmakers from across the political spectrum have said stricter rules may be needed.

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