Xi Jinping

The involvement of students in the latest protests in China has been a cause for serious concern among the leadership. The student community is one cross section of population Beijing has always feared in terms of their ability to effectively coordinate any anti-government activity.

The multiple-day visit will include two conferences that will gather leaders from across the Arab world. Dozens of trade, economic and military agreements - to the tune of tens of billions of dollars - will be signed, CNN reported.Saudi leaders will infuse the trip with a dose of spectacle.Traditional sword dances are likely to be conducted at lavish receptions.

The webinar was attended by four prominent experts Dolkun Isa President of World Uighur Congress (WUC) Germany; Marco Respinti, a well known Italian journalist and Director-in-Charge of 'Bitter Winter' which is a daily newspaper focused at religious suppression and denial of human rights in China and is published in eight languages; Lhadon Tethong, a prominent Tibetan activist and Director of Tibet Action Centre; Tashi Dhundup, President National Democratic Party of Tibet (NDPT).

Those calls were echoed in an open letter to the Chinese government by dozens of exiled Chinese dissidents including Wang Juntao in response to the protests, in which participants held up blank sheets of paper in a mute and ironic protest against authoritarian rule and lack of freedom of speech, the report said.

The violent protests mark some of the strongest dissent China has seen for over 30 years - but despite Beijing cracking down on protesters with ruthless violence, demonstrators are still defiantly turning out on the streets and fighting back against Xi's officials, Daily Mail reported.

A video shows a steady stream of tanks trundling through the eastern city of Xuzhou on Monday night, Daily Mail reported. The footage will rekindle memories of the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, when hundreds - if not thousands - of Chinese protesters were killed by soldiers in tanks, the report said.

A heavy police presence has been reported in several cities, and some gatherings were quelled or failed to materialise, reports the BBC. Reports have emerged of people being questioned and their phones searched. But overseas Chinese have continued protesting, in at least a dozen cities across the world. The weekend demonstrations, a rare sight in China, had grown after a fire in a high-rise block in Urumqi, western China, killed 10 people on November 24.

The wave of civil disobedience is unprecedented in mainland China in the past decade, as frustration mounts over Xi's signature zero-Covid policy nearly three years into the pandemic, the Guardian reported. Protests triggered by a deadly apartment fire in the far west of the country last week took place on Sunday in cities including Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Wuhan and Guangzhou.

Thousands of protesters turned out in Shanghai, where people were bundled into police cars, BBC reported. Students were also seen demonstrating at universities in Beijing and Nanjing, among other places. The latest unrest follows a protest in the remote north-west city of Urumqi, where lockdown rules were blamed after 10 people died in a tower block fire, BBC reported.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Shanghai to remember the victims and demonstrate against restrictions. Many were heard calling for President Xi Jinping to resign, BBC reported. The BBC has seen at least three people being bundled into police cars. The lockdown of blocks of flats has been blamed for deaths in the fire.