This is the moment that Chinese police suddenly dragged Mr Lawrence away as a wave of civil unrest sweeps the nation
Mr Lawrence could be heard desperately screaming ‘Call the consulate’ as he was aggressively taken away by Chinese officers
Protesters gather along a street during a rally for the victims of a deadly fire as well as a protest against China’s harsh Covid-19 restrictions
Officers used pepper spray against about 300 protesters, according to a witness, but western journalists reported the numbers to be in the thousands
Hundreds gathered to mourn the deaths of at least 10 people in an apartment fire last week in Urumqi in the Xinjiang region, where residents were sealed in their buildings to try to stop the spread of Covid
Protesters this evening gather along a street with candles and bunches of flowers during a rally for the victims of a deadly fire
Police form a cordon during a protest against Chinas strict zero Covid measures. Protesters took to the streets in multiple Chinese cities after a deadly apartment fire in Xinjiang province sparked a national outcry as many blamed Covid restrictions
They chanted: ‘We are all Xinjiang people!Go Chinese people! Long live the people!’
One protester, a woman in her 20s, said: ‘I’m here for my future. You have to fight for your own future. I’m not scared because we’re not doing anything wrong, we’re not breaking any laws.Everyone’s working hard for a better tomorrow.’
Meanwhile, others who gathered were more explicitly opposed to China’s zero-Covid policy, shouting: ‘No to nucleic acid tests, we want food!’
Some also chanted slogans recalling a string of tragedies linked to the country’s strict anti-Covid rules.
‘Do not forget those who died in the Guizhou bus crash…do not forget freedom’, one said, referring to an accident in September when a bus transporting residents to a Covid quarantine facility crashed — killing 27 of those on board.
‘Remember the… Xi’an pregnant woman who died, those who could not access medical treatment in Shanghai’, another said.
Others waited quietly, filming the scene — rare in China, where mass protests are routinely quashed by the state — on their phones.
The mood was largely calm, but keeping a watchful eye were at least a dozen police cars parked on surrounding roads.Some police officers walked through the crowd, filming the scenes.
Police began trying to disperse the crowd just before 10.30pm, but some protesters stood their ground, shouting ‘don’t leave!’
Many chose to stay, as passing cars continued honking.
Eventually authorities blocked the road to stop vehicles coming through, and at around 1.45 am, around 100 police officers suddenly marched on the crowd.
Dozens of protesters left, but a small group of around 100 people stayed standing under a bridge, some of them growing angry and trying to reason with police.
Fifteen minutes later more coaches arrived filled with paramilitary police, sparking fears of violence and prompting around half the demonstrators to leave hurriedly.
Those remaining were told by the police to go home, but one person continued to argue.
Eventually the officer at the front of the unit agreed that he had heard the protesters’ concerns, without revealing his identity or rank.
At this, there was a round of applause from the crowd and people agreed to go home.
Flanked on all sides by police, the remnants of the vigil were ushered to the other side of the road where they walked or cycled away.
Professor of Global History at Oxford University, Peter Frankopan, commented on the gravity of the protests and warned the Chinese government would likely respond with even harsher measures.
‘Most serious moment since Tiananmen in 89.Hard to see the genie get put back in the bottle. A soft touch needed; a hammer much more likely to come next. And then who knows,’ he said.
Luke de Pulford of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China said: ‘I can’t tear myself away from these videos.Breathtaking courage. Chinese students demanding democracy. Undeniable echoes of Tiananmen.
Footage also shows the journalist helpless on the ground with three aggressive officers in high-vis jackets standing over him and pulling his arms behind his back
The senior BBC journalist and camera operator for the BBC’s China Bureau has been providing updates of the extraordinarily rare protests of defiance across China.Pictured: Mr Lawrence helpless on the ground
Meanwhile hundreds of students at Tsinghua university in Beijing joined waves of demonstrations as unrest grows over the ruthless zero-Covid policies pursued by the authoritarian government.
The crowds carried a series of placards touting anti-regime slogans and erupted into a series of chants, calling for ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom of expression’.
The university in the Chinese capital is the latest public location to be rocked by unprecedent civil unrest and demonstrations on a scale unseen since the infamous Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 which ended in hundreds of deaths when the army was deployed to quell the uprising.
‘At 11:30 am students started holding up signs at the entrance of the canteen, then more and more people joined.Now there are 200 to 300 people,’ one witness told an AFP journalist.
Participants sang the national anthem and ‘the Internationale’ — a standard of the international communist movement — and chanted ‘freedom will prevail’ and ‘no to lockdowns, we want freedom’, they said.
It comes amid China launching another mass crackdown on the virus with crippling lockdowns put in place across the country, nearly three years after the pandemic started there.
The nation reported another 39,791 new cases spread across the country — the biggest one-day increase on record — including a record 4,307 in Beijing alone.
But it appears ill-equipped for the latest battle with Covid, with it using its own vaccines, rather than approved foreign ones, which do not have the same effectiveness at beating back the virus.