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China’s internet censors moved quickly to scrub social media posts Thursday after reports that banners criticizing the Communist leadership were hung from a busy intersection in the capital Beijing.
Images on Twitter, which is blocked in China, showed smoke spiraling up from a fire on an elevated roadway and banners calling for an end to the hard-line “zero-COVID” policy and the overthrow of Communist Party leader and President Xi Jinping.
Political protest is rare in China, and police are on high alert this week in the run-up to a major Communist Party congress that opens Sunday.
There were no banners hanging from the roadway later in the day, but a circular black scar was visible on the shoulder area where the fire would have been.
It was not clear who might have hung the banners or when they were placed.
