Large-scale protests have begun against the Chinese government.

Over the past week, multiple cities and towns in China’s major metropolitan areas have once again been subjected to severe restrictions and stay-at-home orders due to fears of rising COVID-19 numbers. This is due to the country’s “zero-COVID” policy, which immediately responds to any new cases with widespread lockdowns. Discontent among Chinese citizens has been steadily growing against these restrictions, and they have finally reached a boiling point.

In cities all over the country, large protests began over the weekend, with citizens marching in the streets and loudly voicing their disapproval with Chinese President Xi Jinping and the zero-COVID policy. Workers affected by the economic shutdown of Shanghai, friends and families of those lost in the Ghulja fire that was made worse by lockdowns, and more clashed with authorities in the streets and blocked roads.

As the protests have ramped up, additional discontent with the general state of China has joined the protests against the zero-COVID policy, with citizens demanding greater rights and freedoms and increased accountability from Xi.

“At the beginning, people [were] quite happy with the way Xi Jinping took leadership in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic,” Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a professor of government and international studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, told NBC, “and the government’s propaganda has been pretty efficient in demonstrating that China was doing better than the rest of the world in limiting the number of fatalities. But now it has backfired.”