Nothing is known of a young man named Zhang Sheng who displayed posters at Peking University in favor of ending the single party. Political slogans have reappeared in the Chinese capital after last year’s crackdown on protests. He chose the same place where the students had gathered to call for an end to zero covid policies.
Beijing () – A young man who last week exhibited posters at Peking University calling for an end to the hegemony of the single party and calling for revolution has disappeared. The young man held a protest in front of the campus cafeteria, in the same place where students gathered in November last year to call for an end to covid zero policies. When the University was consulted about the disappearance of the young man, it refused to provide information.
Photos that circulated on the internet on June 22 show a young man protesting in front of the student cafeteria and later being captured by security forces and dragged away. The student holds in his hands a sign reading “End One-Party Dictatorship, Embrace Multi-Party System,” signed below with the nickname “Hobbie Septem” which he also uses on YouTube and Twitter. A second banner propped up on the ground reads “The Democratic Revolution Begins.”
Given the large circulation of images on the internet and social networks and the sudden disappearance of the young man, about whom no news has been heard again, many are beginning to show concern for his fate. And for his personal safety. From the account that was used on social media, they have traced the true identity of the student, who is called Zhang Sheng and in his posts he has repeatedly expressed his support for the democratic revolution and pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
After Beijing’s crackdown on dissent demonstrations, and arrests last year, explicit political slogans and praise for democracy and the end of single-party hegemony have reappeared in the capital. In October last year, shortly before the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China, Peng Lifa unfurled long banners on the Sitong Bridge, near Beijing’s main universities, calling for an end to the dictatorship and a zero-zero policy. Covid, as well as the ouster of “supreme leader” Xi Jinping. Anti-lockdown activism sparked a series of nationwide protests in 2022 that forced the Chinese authorities to end the restrictions-based policy. At the time, the Demonstrators displayed a blank sheet of paper that became a symbol of the protests, later dubbed the “Blank Sheet Movement.”
Before the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4, the Beijing authorities removed the road sign reading “Sitong Bridge.” Furthermore, that bridge no longer appears on the digital navigation map of the capital.
