About 200 people held a protest two blocks from the white house on Sunday in a show of support for demonstrations in China that are demanding an end to strict coronavirus controls and calling for political change.
Holding signs saying no dictatorship, no censorship and lighting candles and chanting free China the protesters in freedom plaza demanded China's President Xi Jinping and the ruling communist party give up power.
Some held up blank sheets of paper a symbol of opposition to the party's pervasive censorship. Uyghurs, tibetans and members of other ethnic minorities that are targeted by surveillance and control by the communist party also joined the protests. The protests erupted on November 25 after at least ten people died in a fire in Urumqi a city in China's Northwest.
Authorities rejected suggestions that firefighters or people trying to escape, might have been blocked by covid-19 lockdown measures. But the disaster became a focus for public frustration with curbs that confine millions of people to their homes.
