World

Chinese Communist Party faces threat not seen since protests that led to Tiananmen Square massacre

Published

3 years ago

November 28, 2022

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These protests are momentous. Wherever they lead, they are already hugely significant.

China has witnessed bigger protests in Hong Kong, but nothing on the mainland has come close to this since 1989.

Unrest is actually commonplace in China but demonstrations are usually small, localised and easily quashed.

What will worry China’s leadership about these protests is their size, their spread across the country, and their persistence.

The authoritarian Chinese Communist Party has not seen a threat like this since the pro-democracy movements of the late 1980s that culminated in the brutal Tiananmen Square massacre.

The spark this time was an apartment fire in the western city of Urumqi that took at least 10 lives.

But these protests have been coming for months.

Seething anger and resentment at the government’s zero-COVID policies has been building. There is something more fundamental going on, though.

According to popular wisdom, ever since that infamous massacre at Tiananmen, the Chinese Communist Party and the people have had a deal.

We will make you more prosperous and keep society stable, and you will let us get on with running the country.

Stability and prosperity mean everything to the Chinese because, as they have learned since childhood, theirs has been a history of chaos, poverty and upheaval. The people have trusted their government to make sure that stays in the past.

During lockdown, however, the people have begun to doubt their government and its competence to rule.

Under the zero-COVID policy, people have been locked in their communities for months and they fear the state’s heavy handedness is killing people – in this case burned alive, locked in an apartment block in Urumqi.

And making matters worse, under lockdown, the economy has not continued on its ever upward trajectory.

The Chinese know the rest of the world is moving on from COVID while they are not. The sight on their televisions of World Cup crowds in their thousands without masks is proof of that. That compact between state and people is no longer delivering like it used to and it means we are in uncharted waters.

And more unrest is almost certainly on its way.

President Xi Jinping has staked a huge amount on China’s zero-COVID policy.

Instead of saving lives by importing more effective vaccines from the outside world – but losing face – his government has tried to eliminate the virus wherever it appears with draconian social controls.

But it has not worked and China is battling outbreaks in a multiplying number of cities. If people continue to protest and defy the lockdowns, the virus will spread.

China is not prepared medically, though.

As Professor Kerry Brown, of King’s College London, puts it: “They have to quite quickly put in place emergency measures for the health service to take a kind of spike in numbers that might need to be hospitalised.”

Tracking, tracing and locking down may work with a quiescent population, but for an angry citizenry losing trust in the authorities, it does not.

“If you continue with the policies that have been in place at the moment, you’re going to get more and more of these protests and they could morph into something far more threatening,” Prof Brown added.

What the Chinese government fears most is a nationally organised opposition, knowing it has spelled the doom of dynasties in the past.

When a harmless spiritual movement called Falun Gong went countrywide in the 90s and its followers surrounded Zhongnanhai, the government compound in Beijing, in a peaceful protest, the leadership was terrified and used the most draconian repression to stamp it out.

It has invested billions in an emerging Orwellian surveillance state to anticipate dissent and unrest and prevent it from spreading.

It now faces nationwide unrest erupting spontaneously. It will no doubt use all the resources of its totalitarian state to try to repress it, but faces its biggest challenge in more than three decades as it tries to do so.

World

Thousands defy ban to join Pride march in Budapest

Published

3 hours ago

June 28, 2025

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Thousands defy ban to join Pride march in Budapest

If Hungary’s authorities thought banning this year’s Pride march would keep people off the streets, they were wrong.

Thousands turned out in Budapest, defying a law which said LGBTQ+ events like this should be cancelled to protect children.

The crowd was determined to fight for their rights.

“This is a special march, not just because it was the 30th, but also because it was banned,” said Orsi, who proudly wore a rainbow headband and waved a rainbow flag.

“I mean that’s all the more reason to go out on the street and show that Budapest and Hungary is a place where everybody is welcome, where love is equal,” she added.

Attendees had been warned that just being there could mean a 500 euro fine or prison time for the organisers.

They were told police would use facial recognition cameras to identify them, but they didn’t care.

Orsi said it was worth a fine.

Leonas had travelled from Poland to show his support and was also happy to take the risk.

“LGBT rights are attacked across the whole world, and we need to defend each other and work with each other,” he said.

Viktor Orban’s government has repeatedly pitched family values against LGBTQ+ rights.

“The mother is a woman, the father is a man and leave our kids alone,” he told conservative audiences in the past.

He says he is protecting Hungary’s Christian values, but critics say this is just part of a wider attack on democracy which has happened during his 15 years in control.

The Pride ban is just the latest targeting of LGBTQ+ communities.

In 2020, the country abolished its legal recognition of transgender people, and in 2021, politicians passed a law banning the depiction of homosexuality to under-18s.

While many were outraged by the attempt to cancel the Pride march, a small number of far-right activists organised demonstrations to show their support:

“Hungary and the Hungarian nation don’t want the aggressive LGBTQ+ propaganda. They are dangerous for our families, they are dangerous for our kids,” said Gabor Kelemen, a member of the 64 Counties Youth Movement.

However, the packed streets showed many disagree.

At one point, as far as the eye could see, the march snaked through streets and across the city’s bridges. The sound of drums and whistles mixing with gay anthems blaring out of speakers.

The organisers said they believed this will be the largest Pride march ever in Budapest.

The crowd was eclectic, with Hungarians from different communities joining a demonstration which many believe is now part of a fight for Hungary’s future.

“This is not only about the complexity of Pride, not only about love or equality… for Hungarians, it’s about sticking together, supporting each other, showing the government that we believe in a different kind of Hungary. We believe in freedom, we believe in democracy,” said activist Adam Kanicsar.

Despite the ban, today Pride attendees were celebrating a victory. But make no mistake, many in Hungary do not support the parade or what they see as an attack on traditional values.

Next year, the country will hold a general election, a vote which will expose how divided Hungary really is.

World

Chants of ‘death to America’ at funeral for Iranian military commanders and scientists

Published

3 hours ago

June 28, 2025

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Chants of 'death to America' at funeral for Iranian military commanders and scientists

Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Tehran to mourn top military commanders, nuclear scientists and others killed in Iran’s 12-day war with Israel.

State-run Press TV said the event – dubbed the “funeral procession of the Martyrs of Power” – was held for 60 people, including four women and four children.

It said at least 16 scientists and 10 senior commanders were among the dead, including head of the Revolutionary Guard General Hossein Salami and the head of the guard’s ballistic missile programme, General Amir Ali Hajizadeh.

Their coffins were driven to Azadi Square on trucks adorned with their pictures as well as rose petals and flowers, as crowds waved Iranian flags.

Chants of “death to America” and “death to Israel” could be heard.

Attending the funeral were Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and other senior figures, including Ali Shamkhani who was seriously wounded during the fighting and is an adviser to Iran‘s supreme leader.

There was no immediate sign of the supreme leader in the state broadcast of the funeral.

Iran’s president later thanked people for turning out.

“From the bottom of my heart, I thank you dear people,” Mr Pezeshkian wrote on social media.

“With love, you bid farewell to the martyrs of our homeland, and our voice of unity reached the ears of the world.”

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi called the deaths “hard and painful”.

Seemingly referencing the recent airstrikes, he added: “Institutions and structures, however important and valuable, return with new glory and greater strength over time, even if it takes years.”

Israel, the only Middle Eastern country widely believed to have nuclear weapons, said its attacks on Iran aimed to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons.

The US joined in by launching strikes on three nuclear enrichment sites in Iran, which Donald Trump said left them “obliterated”, however the exact extent of the damage remains unclear.

Iran denies having a nuclear weapons programme and the UN nuclear watchdog, which carries out inspections in Iran, has said it has “no credible indication” of an active, coordinated weapons project.

Over almost two weeks of fighting, Israel claimed it killed around 30 Iranian commanders and 11 nuclear scientists, before a ceasefire began on Tuesday.