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London’s Whitehall blocked by hundreds of ‘dead’ cyclists protesters
London: Hundreds of cyclists converged on London’s famous Trafalgar Square to protest over road safety and air pollution.The protest on Saturday was organised by the campaign group ‘Stop Killing Cyclists’ a week after three cyclists were killed in traffic accidents, Xinhua news agency reported.At one stage, the protesters lay down outside the main government buildings in Whitehall, pretending to be dead in a minute long silent protest.
Organisers said the vigil was a way of paying tribute to those killed in one of the bloodiest weeks on London’s roads.Making their way from Trafalgar Square along Whitehall, many cycling protesters rang their bells in a noisy chorus to draw attention to their fears.In total, nine cyclists lost their lives last year.In a speech to the crowd, campaigner Nicole Branch, referring to the three cyclists and two pedestrians who died in accidents in the past week, said: “Five sets of families and friends are grieving and these deaths could have been avoided if this government would just invest in infrastructure.”
The campaign group called on Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond to increase investment in Britain’s cycling and pedestrian infrastructure by allocating 10 per cent of the transport budget to making travel safer for cyclists and walkers.On his part, London mayor Sadiq Khan said: “I’m determined to make cycling safer and easier for all Londoners. That’s why we’re addressing the most dangerous junctions, increasing the number of safer cycle lanes, working with boroughs to introduce more 20 mph limits (32 km/h) and removing the most dangerous lorries from our streets.”
“I’ve allocated more investment for cycling than ever before and appointed the capital’s first ever full-time Walking and Cycling Commissioner to drive forward these improvements.”A spokesman for the government’s Department for Transport said: “Britain has some of the safest roads in the world but we are committed to reducing the number of cyclists killed and seriously injured.”Meanwhile, many of the protesters wore facemasks to highlight the growing problem of air pollution in London.Protesters waved banners with the messages “Traffic stop killing with pollution” and “We are all canaries in London’s toxic air.”
‘Stop Killing Cyclists’ spokesman Caspar Hughes said: “Air pollution is poisoning millions of people in the UK, whilst traffic carbon emissions are contributing to the climate emergency.”Earlier, Khan had issued a warning of a high pollution forecast on Saturday for London, with warnings being posted at bus stops, underground stations and roadsides.
Shanghai’s rich middle class is leading a wave of online dissent over the strict and prolonged lockdowns imposed in various parts of the country. Chinese internet censorship is struggling as patience is wearing thin in many urban centers, coming up with creative forms of online protests.
Social Media Posts Revealing Lockdown Tension in Shanghai
Drawn-out lockdowns are nothing new in China as authorities insist with the nation’s zero-Covid policy since the start of the pandemic. Currently over This time around, however, metropolitan areas like Shanghai are increasingly difficult to keep quiet, given that its more than 25 million residents have seen weeks of total isolation along with food shortages and many other service interruptions.
Dozens of towns and reportedly over 300 million Chinese citizens have been affected by lockdowns of different severity. As expected, urban netizens have been most outspoken over their difficulties by finding creative ways to get around state censorship and bans placed on topics, news comments and spontaneous campaigns.
Shanghai residents have been using mobile proxies and hijacking seemingly unrelated hashtags to talk about healthcare issues, delivery failures and the overall severity of their situation. The “positive energy” that the Chinese government wants to transmit during the recent prolonged series of lockdowns does not come naturally to those counting food supplies and online censors are working hard to filter words, trending topics and undesired social media sharing.
WeChat groups and message threads are under constant monitoring. Posts questioning the zero-Covid approach have been quickly deleted, including by leading Chinese health experts like Dr. Zhong Nanshan. Video footage is soon censored and protests and investigations are quickly made to disappear.
Where this has not worked, officials have exposed banners with warnings and outright threats like “watch your own mouth or face punishment”, while drones have been patrolling the city skies. Yet, if anything, this has led to further tensions and unspoken confrontation with Shanghai’s educated and affluent middle class.
Creative Online Solutions Harnessing Civic Energy
Announcements by Chinese social media that they would be publishing the IP addresses of users who “spread rumors” have not helped either. Tech industry research has shown that much of Asia’s tech-savvy population has a habit of using mobile proxies and other privacy tools, quickly finding workarounds to browse the internet freely and talk to the world about the hottest topics.
The sheer volume of forbidden posts is already a challenge for the very censorship system, experts explain. Unable to track all trending hashtags, state workers overlook topics that speak about the US, Ukraine or other popular news. Linking human rights elsewhere to their situation, Chinese online dissidents establish their informal channels and “hijack” the conversation to share personal or publicly relevant information about the Covid suppression in their town.
Sarcastic and satirical posts still dominate. Others hope to evade the censors by replacing words from famous poems or the national anthem. One thing is certain – social media, when harnessed with the right creativity, has proven its ability to mount pressure on the government in even some of the most strictly controlled tech environments like China.
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