2022 Ürümqi fire

On 24 November 2022, a fire broke out in a residential high-rise apartment building in a Uyghur-majority neighborhood in Ürümqi, Xinjiang, PRC. Local authorities reported ten people, all Uyghurs, were dead and an additional nine were injured, though some raised concerns of underreporting. Journalists raised questions of whether Beijing's strict enforcement of the zero-COVID policy prevented residents from leaving the building or interfered with the efforts of firefighters. PRC authorities have denied these claims. The fire has been called a trigger of protests in several cities across China and in several other countries targeting the PRC government's zero-COVID policy, but in several instances also called for an end to Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s one-party rule and for general secretary Xi Jinping to step down.