Posted by Xiao Qiang | Aug 13, 2005 Nearly 100 people demonstrated outside a meeting of Shanghai’s legislature yesterday for the second day in a row, chanting slogans and waving handwritten signs protesting over housing disputes.
The protesters shouted “Government robbers return our housing” and called for the city’s leaders to step down as they stood across the street from the Shanghai Exhibition Centre, where the Shanghai People’s Congress Standing Committee is meeting until tomorrow.
Public protests are rare in Shanghai, though residents have staged a series of rallies over compensation packages offered for being evicted from their homes to make way for property and infrastructure projects. At a full legislature meeting in January, protests occurred daily.