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Hundreds in Vancouver rally in sympathy with China COVID protests

The crowd chanted slogans in English and Mandarin against the Chinese Communist Party and called on President Xi Jinping to step down

People light candles at a vigil in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery for the victims of an apartment fire in the far western city of Urumqi, China, during a protest in Vancouver on Sunday, Nov. 27, 2022.
People light candles at a vigil in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery for the victims of an apartment fire in the far western city of Urumqi, China, during a protest in Vancouver on Sunday, Nov. 27, 2022. Photo by Nono Shen Nono Shen, The Canad /The Canadian Press

Hundreds of people have rallied in Vancouver in sympathy with rare protests that are sweeping across China in response to the country’s hardline zero-COVID lockdown policies.

The protesters outside the Vancouver Art Gallery Sunday night also mourned the deaths of at least 10 people in an apartment fire in the Xinjiang region that critics blame on the anti-virus controls that have restricted millions of people to their homes in China.

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Protesters lit candles and held up blank sheets of paper, in what has become a Chinese symbol of dissent.

People light candle at a vigil in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery for the victims of an apartment fire in the far western city of Urumqi, China, during a protest in Vancouver on Sunday, Nov. 27, 2022.
People light candle at a vigil in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery for the victims of an apartment fire in the far western city of Urumqi, China, during a protest in Vancouver on Sunday, Nov. 27, 2022. Photo by Nono Shen Nono Shen, The Canad /The Canadian Press

The crowd chanted slogans in English and Mandarin against the Chinese Communist Party and called on President Xi Jinping to step down.

Protests broke out over the weekend in at least 10 Chinese cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and Guangzhou, a scale that is highly unusual.

Xi’s government faces mounting anger at its zero-COVID policies that have shut down access to areas throughout China in an attempt to isolate every case at a time when other countries are easing controls.

— by Nono Shen in Vancouver, with files from The Associated Press