Xi Jinping's zero Covid policy: Tibet erupts in mass protest

Hundreds of people in the Tibetan capital Lhasa have taken to the streets to protest harsh Covid measures, video footage showed, a rare demonstration in the tightly controlled region.

Lhasa has been locked down for nearly three months in accordance with China's zero-Covid strategy, which sees millions of residents across the country repeatedly restricted to their homes whenever cases rise.

The measures have prompted rare protests in cities such as Shenzhen and Shanghai and many, including in Lhasa, have complained of food shortages and poor conditions in mass quarantine facilities.

Videos shared on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, showed hundreds of what appeared to be mostly migrant workers of Han Chinese ethnicity marching through the streets of Lhasa on Wednesday, demanding to be allowed to return home.

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Those videos and related content were quickly scrubbed from Douyin and the Twitter-like Weibo platform, though some text posts referencing an "incident" in Lhasa remained Thursday.

In one of Wednesday's videos, hundreds of people are seen in a street blocked at one end by police and hazmat-suited health workers, while an official shouts through a megaphone: "Everybody please understand our work, go home and do not crowd this area."

A video shot from another angle showed police vans and officers carrying riot shields stationed nearby.

AFP has geolocated the two videos next to an agricultural market not far from Lhasa's Potala Palace, the traditional residence of the Dalai Lama and the site of a self-immolation protest by a Tibetan pop star earlier this year.

There is already a heavy security presence in Tibet, with access to journalists mostly restricted.

Wednesday's demonstrations are believed to be the largest since 2008, when large-scale protests against Chinese authorities' increased repression towards the majority ethnic Tibetan population were violently subdued.

Some social media users suggested police would have cracked down more harshly on the anti-lockdown march had the protestors been Tibetan rather than Han Chinese.