Chinese crowds hold up blank sheets to hit out at censorship

They have become a symbol of China’s recent wave of protests: Blank, white sheets of paper held aloft by demonstrators to signify their opposition to anti-virus lockdowns, censorship and restrictions on free speech, media report said. As videos of crowds holding up paper sheets and chanting slogans flooded the internet last weekend, Chinese-language social media posts have come to call the demonstrations in more than a dozen cities the “white paper revolution”, RFA reported.Authorities have since moved quickly to squelch the protests, arresting some demonstrators and sending university students home, in a bid to quickly snuff out the most overt challenge to Chinese leadership in decades.Using blank sheets of paper as a symbol of protest is not new.They were used during protests in the Soviet Union during the 1990s and in recent years in Russia and Belarus as well, Taiwan-based Chinese blogger Zuola told Radio Free Asia.”In the current climate in China, you can be told off by the government for saying anything at all,” Zuola said. “It’s the ultimate kind of performance art protest — by holding up a blank sheet of paper, you are saying that you have something to say, but that you haven’t said it yet.”