CARTHAGE, N.C. — Two power substations in a North Carolina county were damaged by gunfire in what is being investigated as a criminal act, causing damage that could take days to repair and leaving tens of thousands of people without electricity, authorities said Sunday.
In response to ongoing outages, which began just after 7 p.m. Saturday across Moore County, officials announced a state of emergency that included a curfew from 9 p.m. Sunday to 5 a.m. Monday. Also, county schools will be closed Monday.
“An attack like this on critical infrastructure is a serious, intentional crime and I expect state and federal authorities to thoroughly investigate and bring those responsible to justice,” Gov. Roy Cooper wrote on Twitter.
Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields said at a Sunday news conference that authorities have not determined a motivation. He said someone pulled up and “opened fire on the substation, the same thing with the other one.”
“No group has stepped up to acknowledge or accept that they’re the ones that done it,” Fields said, adding “we’re looking at all avenues.”
The sheriff noted that the FBI was working with state investigators to determine who was responsible. He also said “it was targeted.”
“It wasn’t random,” Fields said.
Fields said law enforcement is providing security at the substations and for businesses overnight.
“We will have folks out there tonight around the clock,” Fields said.
Roughly 37,000 electric customers in the county were without power on Sunday evening, according to poweroutage.us.
With cold temperatures forecast for Sunday night, the county also opened a shelter at a sports complex in Carthage.
Duke Energy spokesman Jeff Brooks said multiple pieces of equipment were damaged and will have to be replaced. He said while the company is trying to restore power as quickly as possible, he braced customers for the potential of outages lasting days.
“We are looking at a pretty sophisticated repair with some fairly large equipment and so we do want citizens of the town to be prepared that this will be a multiday restoration for most customers, extending potentially as long as Thursday,” Brooks said at the news conference.
Dr. Tim Locklear, the county’s school superintendent, announced classes will be canceled Monday.
“As we move forward, we’ll be taking it day by day in making those decisions,” Locklear said.
The Pilot newspaper in Southern Pines reported that one of its journalists saw a gate to one of the substations had been damaged and was lying in an access road.
“A pole holding up the gate had clearly been snapped off where it meets the ground. The substation’s infrastructure was heavily damaged,” the newspaper reported.
The county of approximately 100,000 people lies about an hour’s drive southwest of Raleigh and is known for golf resorts in Pinehurst and other communities.
Authorities have announced a mandatory curfew in a North Carolina county where around 40,000 customers lost power after two power substations were damaged by gunfire Saturday night.
At a news conference Sunday, Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields said the county will implement a mandatory curfew from 9 p.m. until 5 a.m., starting Sunday night.
Municipality and county officials “have formed a plan for the night and the next few nights that we may be out of power. It’s a very serious situation,” Fields said. “So we’ve come to an agreement to best protect our citizens and to protect the businesses of our county, we’re going to implement a curfew tonight.”
The power outage in Moore County is being investigated as a “criminal occurrence” after crews found signs of potential vandalism at several locations, CNN previously reported.
A gate at one of the locations also appears to have been taken off its hinges, Mike Cameron of the Southern Pines Fire and Rescue Department told CNN on Sunday afternoon.
Cameron said the area is experiencing increased emergency calls due to the lack of power, adding that auto accidents have occurred because traffic lights are out. People who rely on oxygen have placed emergency calls, he said.
Initially, local officials estimated power would be restored Sunday evening, but Cameron said after assessing the damage, they’ve determined it could take at least until Monday.
The equipment that was damaged is not easily replaceable and will have to be brought in to make the repairs, Cameron said.
A local supermarket is distributing ice to impacted residents, according to a news release from grocery chain Harris Teeter.
The power outage has also led officials to cancel Monday classes for all schools in the county. “An announcement will be made tomorrow evening to inform parents and staff of the status of schools for Tuesday,” Moore County Schools said in a tweet Sunday afternoon.
Mapbox
Several communities across the county began experiencing power outages just after 7 p.m. Saturday, the Moore County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post.
“As utility companies began responding to the different substations, evidence was discovered that indicated that intentional vandalism had occurred at multiple sites,” the office said.
At least two substations were vandalized “with criminal intent,” US Rep. Richard Hudson said Sunday morning in a release.
The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and the FBI are responding, according to Hudson. He said the motive remains unknown.
Hudson, whose congressional district includes Moore County, said the Southern Pines Police Department has opened a community center for residents to charge devices.
CNN has reached out to Southern Pines police and the FBI.
More than 38,000 customers were without power across the county Sunday morning, according to the Duke Energy outage map. According to poweroutage.us, about 41,000 customers had lost power in Moore County and neighboring Hoke County.
Crews were experiencing “multiple equipment failures” that are affecting substations in Moore County, Duke Energy spokesman Jeff Brooks told CNN affiliate WRAL.
“We are also investigating signs of potential vandalism related to the outages,” Brooks said.
Deputies and officers from other law enforcement agencies responded to the different sites to provide security, according to the sheriff’s office.
Gov. Roy Cooper on Sunday tweeted that state law enforcement would join the investigation.
“I have spoken with Duke Energy and state law enforcement officials about the power outages in Moore County. They are investigating and working to return electricity to those impacted,” Cooper said. “The state is providing support as needed.”
Moore County is in central North Carolina, about 50 miles northwest of Fayetteville.
MOORE COUNTY, N.C. — Authorities in North Carolina believe vandalism may have caused a power outage that affected thousands of customers Saturday night.
A mass power outage in several communities beginning just after 7 p.m. Saturday “is being investigated as a criminal occurrence,” the Moore County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post.
“As utility companies began responding to the different substations, evidence was discovered that indicated that intentional vandalism had occurred at multiple sites,” the sheriff’s office said.
Moore County deputies and other law enforcement responded and were providing security at the affected sites, the sheriff’s office said.
Utility company Duke Energy said nearly 38,000 customers were without power in Moore County, while the Randolph Electric Membership Corporation reported outages affected nearly 3,000 customers in the county’s southern area, WRAL-TV reported.
Duke Energy spokesman Jeff Brooks said crews experienced “multiple equipment failures” at substations and the power company was “investigating signs of potential vandalism related to the outages,” WRAL reported.
Duke Energy said power was expected to be restored Sunday, but the wait could last until 10 p.m. Brooks said the company would update customers when information was available, WRAL reported.
BOISE, Idaho — In a normal year, University of Idaho students would be bustling between classes and the library, readying for the pre-finals cramming period known as “dead week.”
On Wednesday, however, a little under half the students appeared to be gone, choosing to stay home and take classes online rather than return to the town where the killings of four classmates remain unsolved, said Blaine Eckles, the university’s dean of students. Some students who were in attendance were relying on university-hired security staffers to drive them to class because they didn’t want to walk across campus alone.
The Moscow Police Department has yet to name a person of interest in the stabbing deaths of Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Xana Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls, Idaho; Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho; and Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20, of Mount Vernon, Washington. The three women lived together in a rental home across the street from campus, and Chapin was there staying that night.
A county coroner said they were likely asleep when they were attacked. Two weeks later investigators have yet to find a weapon used in the killings — believed to be a military-style knife — or elaborate on why they think the killings were “targeted.”
The killings have left the university and the small farming community that contains it shell-shocked.
“When we lose any students, especially under these circumstances, my heart is absolutely broken,” Eckles said. “It shakes you to your core a little bit, knowing that in this community, which is incredibly safe in general, can have something this horrific happen.”
Now, as students and faculty members try to navigate a quagmire of grief and fear, government agencies and community members are searching for answers and trying to help lessen the damage.
Gov. Brad Little announced last week that he was directing up to $1 million in state emergency funds for the investigation. The FBI has assigned 44 people to the case — half of them stationed in Moscow — and the Idaho State Police has 15 troopers helping with community patrols and another 20 investigators working the case.
Some community members started online fundraising campaigns to support family members and friends of the slain students. A university alum began raising money to equip women on campus with handheld personal safety alarms. By last week, Kerry Uhlorn had brought in more than $18,000, ordered more than 700 of the alarms and had plans to buy 900 more, Boise television station KTVB reported.
Thousands of people were expected to join the university community in mourning Wednesday evening, with several simultaneous candlelight vigils scheduled across the state. The school districts in Boise and Meridian announced plans to light up their athletic fields at the same time in solidarity.
Still, the question for faculty members and students remains: How do they focus on learning with four friends gone and a killer on the loose? Staffers are talking directly to students about how to handle the challenge, Eckles said.
“It’s the elephant in the room, right? It’s hard to do that,” Eckles said. “Our faculty are also really understanding that it’s going to be a hard time for students to kind of focus and concentrate at this time. So they’re being very patient and leading with a lot of grace. And quite frankly, I think our students are doing that with our employees as well.”
Local law enforcement agencies have seen an uptick in calls reporting suspicious behavior.
“We understand there is a sense of fear in our community,” the Moscow Police Department wrote on Nov. 27. Since the killings, the number of people requesting welfare checks, in which an officer is sent to check on a person’s wellbeing, has doubled.
The university has also seen an increase in people calling its “Vandal Care” phone line to report that they were struggling or worried someone else was struggling with an issue, Eckles said.
“While I personally am very confident that the police will resolve (the deaths), until that happens, no one is resting easy,” he said. “There’s someone out there that took the lives of four of our Vandals, and we don’t know who they are. We don’t know where they are.”
Eckes added he hopes the vigils will offer some temporary comfort, but the community will not “ultimately be able to heal until someone is brought to justice for this crime.”
Some of the victims’ family members were expected to attend the vigils.
An environmentalist reacts after spraying orange paint on the window shop of the Aston Martin car … [+] show room, in central London. (Photo by ISABEL INFANTES / AFP) (Photo by ISABEL INFANTES/AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images
In the past few weeks, there have been a number of instances of environmentalists vandalizing paintings in an effort to bring attention to global climate change and other social issues. In the first, two young activists in the United Kingdom splashed tomato soup on a Van Gogh. In another, this time in Germany, a Monet was splashed with mashed potatoes. And most recently, an activist glued his head to a Johannes Vermeer painting in the Netherlands. In all instances, fortunately, the paintings had glass covers, so the artwork was not destroyed.
It’s easy to ridicule these rebellious young punks for not understanding how the world works. Very few people will respond to these spectacles by saying, “You know what, now I’m going to take climate change more seriously.” If anything, the opposite is more likely. People will be so turned off by the activists’ tactics, some will be less likely to act or vote in an environmentally conscious way.
Many commentators have piled on to criticize these protests, including some in the environmental movement. And while I am sympathetic to the criticisms, there’s another lesson here worth thinking about. If these eco-activists really believe in their message so passionately—which is essentially that without urgent action the world as we know it is going to end in the not-too-distant-future—can you really blame them for doing whatever it takes to get people’s attention? After all, what other course of action is available to them?
It isn’t like teenagers are routinely given a public platform with which to express their policy views. They aren’t even allowed to vote until they are 18 in the United States. And while the internet does provide an outlet for venting, TikTok and SnapChat aren’t exactly driving our political discourse.
In fact, those in positions of influence usually won’t take you seriously unless you have credentials. That means a degree from a fancy university, a high-profile job, or publications and citations in peer-reviewed journals. While these things do signal status, they don’t guarantee wisdom. Moreover, securing certain elite credentials often requires a certain amount of allegiance to the establishment, which is precisely what these young activists are fighting against.
One exception is Greta Thunberg, the 19-year-old Swedish environmental activist. Whatever one thinks about her—she has also been known to use abrasive tactics—she wields rare influence for someone the age of a college freshman.
Portrait of environmental activist Greta Thunberg from 2019. (Photo by EuropaNewswire/Gado/Getty … [+] Images)
Getty Images
Thunberg offers a glimpse to us of the internet’s potential to be a great equalizer in the realm of status and influence. With more than 14 million Instagram and 5 million Twitter followers, she can count herself among the most popular public intellectuals today.
Of course, the world of social media influencers in some ways represents the worst elements of human status-seeking. Twitter and Instagram are a lot like American high schools, where everything is one big popularity contest. Except online, unlike in school, everyone is competing for the most likes or the all-coveted blue check mark.
These silly status competitions resemble the Dr. Seuss Story “The Sneetches,” where there are two classes of fuzzy, yellow bird-like creatures that walk upright. One group of “elite” Sneetches has green stars on its bellies, while the other, more lowly class, is without such a mark. A clever entrepreneur eventually figures out he can take advantage of this situation, and he invents a star-making machine. It makes him rich, but ruins the value of the star brand in the process.
The story sounds funny, except fiction is not that far off from reality. Ethereum ETH founder Vitalik Buterin recently shared a screenshot of a Twitter-verified account that was using his picture, highlighting how check-marked scam accounts might be more common than you think. Blue-check mark verification schemes have even been caught charging as much as $25,000 for a verified Instagram account.
These examples demonstrate how valuable having influence is to people, and how far those without it are willing to go to obtain it. Some status-seekers just want attention, but others want attention to promote a cause. And they are willing to give up not only money but freedom too to get it, as evidenced by the activists willing to break the law to have their message heard.
Anonymous and Wikileaks are organizations that have sought to disrupt the establishment, while bringing attention to their causes. The objectives of these movements are sometimes questionable, but it’s easy to sympathize with their emphasis on the corruption of existing institutions and their willingness to take on the upper echelons of power that stifle minority viewpoints. Is it any surprise these groups’ messages resonate with young people who feel they have no voice?
We don’t need to embrace the tactics of the young rebellious punks. Indeed, the older generation is often right that some of their demands are unreasonable. And yet, their passion for their cause, their optimism about the prospects for change, and their willingness to take on the institutions of power deserve our respect. Young people are screaming out to be heard and too many of us respond back with ridicule. It’s time we gave them a voice.
Jolie’s nerves were running high as she walked into the campus of Goldsmiths, the University of London, last Friday morning. She’d planned to arrive early enough that the campus would be deserted, but her fellow students were already beginning to filter in to start their day.
In the hallway of an academic building, Jolie, who’d worn a face mask to obscure her identity, waited for the right moment to reach into her bag for the source of her nervousness – several pieces of A4-size paper she had printed out in the small hours of the night.
Finally, when she made sure none of the students – especially those who, like Jolie, come from China – were watching, she quickly pasted one of them on a notice board.
“Life not zero-Covid policy, freedom not martial-lawish lockdown, dignity not lies, reform not cultural revolution, votes not dictatorship, citizens not slaves,” it read, in English.
The day before, these words, in Chinese, had been handwritten in red paint on a banner hanging over a busy overpass thousands of miles away in Beijing, in a rare, bold protest against China’s top leader Xi Jinping.
Another banner on the Sitong Bridge denounced Xi as a “dictator” and “national traitor” and called for his removal – just days before a key Communist Party meeting at which he is set to secure a precedent-breaking third term.
Both banners were swiftly removed by police and all mentions of the protest wiped from the Chinese internet. But the short-lived display of political defiance – which is almost unimaginable in Xi’s authoritarian surveillance state–has resonated far beyond the Chinese capital, sparking acts of solidarity from Chinese nationals inside China and across the globe.
Over the past week, as party elites gathered in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People to extoll Xi and his policies at the 20th Party Congress, anti-Xi slogans echoing the Sitong Bridge banners have popped up in a growing number of Chinese cities and hundreds of universities worldwide.
In China, the slogans were scrawled on walls and doors in public bathrooms – one of the last places spared the watchful eyes of the country’s ubiquitous surveillance cameras.
Overseas, many anti-Xi posters were put up by Chinese students like Jolie, who have long learned to keep their critical political views to themselves due to a culture of fear. Under Xi, the party has ramped up surveillance and control of the Chinese diaspora, intimidating and harassing those who dare to speak out and threatening their families back home.
CNN spoke with two Chinese citizens who scribbled protest slogans in bathroom stalls and half a dozen overseas Chinese students who put up anti-Xi posters on their campuses. As with Jolie, CNN agreed to protect their identities with pseudonyms and anonymity due to the sensitivity of their actions.
Many said they were shocked and moved by the Sitong Bridge demonstration and felt compelled to show support for the lone protester, who has not been heard of since and is likely to face lifelong repercussions. He has come to be known as the “Bridge Man,” in a nod to the unidentified “Tank Man” who faced down a column of tanks on Beijing’s Avenue of Eternal Peace the day after the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989.
Few of them believe their political actions will lead to real changes on the ground. But with Xi emerging triumphant from the Party Congress with the potential for lifelong rule, the proliferation of anti-Xi slogans are a timely reminder that despite his relentless crushing of dissent, the powerful leader may always face undercurrents of resistance.
As China’s online censors went into overdrive last week to scrub out all discussions about the Sitong Bridge protest, some social media users shared an old Chinese saying: “A tiny spark can set the prairie ablaze.”
It would appear that the fire started by the “Bridge Man” has done just that, setting off an unprecedented show of dissent against Xi’s leadership and authoritarian rule among mainland Chinese nationals.
The Chinese government’s policies and actions have sparked outcries online and protests in the streets before. But in most cases, the anger has focused on local authorities and few have attacked Xi himself so directly or blatantly.
Critics of Xi have paid a heavy price. Two years ago, Ren Zhiqiang, a Chinese billionaire who criticized Xi’s handling of China’s initial Covid-19 outbreak and called the top leader a power-hungry “clown,” was jailed for 18 years on corruption charges.
But the risks of speaking out did not deter Raven Wu, a university senior in eastern China. Inspired by the “Bridge Man,” Wu left a message in English in a bathroom stall to share his call for freedom, dignity, reform, and democracy. Below the message, he drew a picture of Winnie the Pooh wearing a crown, with a “no” sign drawn over it. (Xi has been compared to the chubby cartoon bear by Chinese social media users.)
“I felt a long-lost sense of liberation when I was scribbling,” Wu said. “In this country of extreme cultural and political censorship, no political self-expression is allowed. I felt satisfied that for the first time in my life as a Chinese citizen, I did the right thing for the people.”
There was also the fear of being found out by the school – and the consequences, but he managed to push it aside. Wu, whose own political awakening came in high school when he heard about the Tiananmen Square massacre by chance, hoped his scribbles could cause a ripple of change – however small – among those who saw them.
He is deeply worried about China’s future. Over the past two years, “despairing news” has repeatedly shocked him, he said.
“Just like Xi’s nickname ‘the Accelerator-in-Chief,’ he is leading the country into the abyss … The most desperate thing is that through the [Party Congress], Xi Jinping will likely establish his status as the emperor and double down on his policies.”
Chen Qiang, a fresh graduate in southwestern China, shared that bleak outlook – the economy is faltering, and censorship is becoming ever more stringent, he said.
Chen had tried to share the Sitong Bridge protest on WeChat, China’s super app, but it kept getting censored. So he thought to himself: why don’t I write the slogans in nearby places to let more people know about him?
He found a public restroom and wrote the original Chinese version of the slogan on a toilet stall door. As he scrawled on, he was gripped by a paralyzing fear of being caught by the strict surveillance. But he forced himself to continue. “(The Beijing protester) had sacrificed his life or the freedom of the rest of his life to do what he did. I think we should also be obliged to do something that we can do,” he said.
Chen described himself as a patriot. “However I don’t love the (Communist) Party. I have feelings for China, but not the government.”
So far, the spread of the slogans appears limited.
A number of pro-democracy Instagram accounts run by anonymous Chinese nationals have been keeping track of the anti-Xi graffiti and posters. Citizensdailycn, an account with 32,000 followers, said it received around three dozen reports from mainland China, about half of which involved bathrooms. Northern_Square, with 42,000 followers, said it received eight reports of slogans in bathrooms, which users said were from cities including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Wuhan.
The movement has been dubbed by some as the “Toilet Revolution” – in a jibe against Xi’s campaign to improve the sanitary conditions at public restrooms in China, and a nod to the location of much of the anti-Xi messaging.
Wu, the student in Eastern China, applauded the term for its “ironic effect.” But he said it also offers an inspiration. “Even in a cramped space like the toilet, as long as you have a revolutionary heart, you can make your own contribution,” he said.
For Chen, the term is a stark reminder of the highly limited space of free expression in China.
“Due to censorship and surveillance, people can only express political opinions by writing slogans in places like toilets. It is sad that we have been oppressed to this extent,” Chen said.
For many overseas Chinese students, including Jolie, it is their first time to have taken political action, driven by a mixture of awe and guilt toward the “Bridge Man” and a sense of duty to show solidarity.
Among the posters on the notice boards of Goldsmiths, the University of London, is one with a photo of the Sitong Bridge protest, which showed a plume of dark smoke billowing up from the bridge.
Above it, a Chinese sentence printed in red reads: “The courage of one person should not be without echo.”
Putting up protest posters “is the smallest thing, but the biggest I can do now – not because of my ability but because of my lack of courage,” Jolie said,pointing to her relative safety acting outside China’s borders.
Others expressed a similar sense of guilt. “I feel ashamed. If I were in Beijing now, I would never have the courage to do such a thing,” said Yvonne Li, who graduated from Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands last year.
Li and a friend put up a hundred posters on campus and in the city center, including around China Town.
“I really wanted to cry when I first saw the protest on Instagram. I felt politically depressed reading Chinese news everyday. I couldn’t see any hope. But when I saw this brave man, I realized there is still a glimmer of light,” she said.
The two Instagram accounts, Citizensdailycn and Northern_square, said they each received more than 1,000 submissions of anti-Xi posters from the Chinese diaspora. According to Citizensdailycn’s tally, the posters have been sighted at 320 universities across the world.
Teng Biao, a human rights lawyer and visiting professor at the University of Chicago, said he is struck by how fast the overseas opposition to Xi has gathered pace and how far it has spread.
When Xi scrapped presidential term limits in 2018, posters featuring the slogan “Not My President” and Xi’s face had surfaced in some universities outside China – but the scale paled in comparison, Teng noted.
“In the past, there were only sporadic protests by overseas Chinese dissidents. Voices from university campuses were predominantly supporting the Chinese government and leadership,” he said.
In recent years, as Xi stoked nationalism at home and pursued an assertive foreign policy abroad, an increasing number of overseas Chinese students have stepped forward to defend Beijing from any criticism or perceived slights – sometimes with the blessing of Chinese embassies.
There were protests when a university invited the Dalai Lama to be a guest speaker; rebukes for professors perceived to have “anti-China” content in their lectures; and clashes when other campus groups expressed support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests.
But as the widespread anti-Xi posters have shown, the rising nationalistic sentiment is by no means representative of all Chinese students overseas. Most often, those who do not agree with the party and its policies simply choose to stay silent. For them, the stakes of openly criticizing Beijing are just too high. In past years, those who spoke out have faced harassment and intimidation, retaliation against family back home, and lengthy prison terms upon returning to China.
“Even liberal democracies are influenced by China’s long arm of repression. The Chinese government has a large amount of spies and informants, monitoring overseas Chinese through various United Front-linked organizations,” Teng said, referring to a party body responsible for influence and infiltration operations abroad.
Teng said Beijing has extended its grip on Chinese student bodies abroad to police the speech and actions of its nationals overseas – and to make sure the party line is observed even on foreign campuses.
“The fact that so many students are willing to take the risk shows how widespread the anger is over Xi’s decade of moving backward.”
Most students CNN spoke with said they were worried about being spotted with the posters by Beijing’s supporters, who they fear could expose them on Chinese social media or report them to the embassies.
“We were scared and kept looking around. I found it absurd at the time and reflected briefly upon it – what we were doing is completely legal here (in the Netherlands), but we were still afraid of being seen by other Chinese students,” said Chen, the recent graduate in Rotterdam.
The fear of being betrayed by peers has weighed heavily on Jolie, the student in London, in particular while growing up in China with views that differed from the party line. “I was feeling really lonely,” she said. “The horrible (thing) is that your friends and classmates may report you.”
But as she showed solidarity for the “Bridge Man,” she also found solidarity in others who did the same. In the day following the protest in Beijing, Jolie saw on Instagram an outpouring of photos showing protest posters from all over the world.
“I was so moved and also a little bit shocked that (I) have many friends, although I don’t know them, and I felt a very strong emotion,” she said. “I just thought – my friends, how can I contact you, how can I find you, how can we recognize each other?”
Sometimes, all it takes is a knowing smile from a fellow Chinese student – or a new protest poster that crops up on the same notice board – to make the students feel reassured.
“It’s important to tell each other that we’re not alone,” said a Chinese student at McGill University in Quebec.
“(After) I first hung the posters, I went back to see if they were still there and I would see another small poster hung by someone else and I just feel really safe and comforted.”
“I feel like it is my responsibility to do this,” they said. If they didn’t do anything, “it’s just going to be over, and I just don’t want it to be over so quickly without any consequences.”
In China, the party will also be watching closely for any consequences. Having tightened its grip on all aspects of life, launched a sweeping crackdown on dissent, wiped out much of civil society and built a high-tech surveillance state, the party’s hold on power appears firmer than ever.
But the extensive censorship around the Sitong Bridge protest also betrays its paranoia.
“Maybe (the bridge protester) is the only one with such courage and willingness to sacrifice, but there may be millions of other Chinese people who share his views,” said Matt, a Chinese student at Columbia University in New York.
“He let me realize that there are still such people in China, and I want others to know that, too. Not everyone is brainwashed. (We’re) still a nation with ideals and hopes.”
A Russian Orthodox cathedral in New York appears to have been defaced with red paint, following a similar incident in which the Russian consulate was vandalized with red spray paint.
An eyewitness told CNN that they saw a person in a face mask splash red paint on the steps of St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral on New York’s Upper East Side late Friday night.
The cathedral’s spokesperson, Abbot Nicodemus, also confirmed the vandalism to CNN.
Remnants of the paint could be seen Saturday morning, after the eyewitness observed a woman working to scrub it away.
“We sincerely do not understand those individuals that allow themselves acts of vandalism in relation to our cathedral. We pray for them,” Nicodemus said n a statement to CNN. “We want them to realize that the Russian Orthodox Church in the USA carries out important spiritual and peacemaking activities here, and we are open to all people, regardless of their nationality and political beliefs.”
The New York Police Department said it was not aware of or investigating this incident.
The NYPD previously told CNN it was investigating the red graffiti on the Russian consulate building as a “possible bias incident.” There were no updates in that investigation.
The spokesperson told CNN that Friday’s incident is the third case of vandalism since the beginning of the year in which the cathedral has been marked with paint or written with “insulting” inscriptions.
In addition, “insulting” calls and emails have been received by the cathedral, Nicodemus said, adding that some include direct threats against the clergy and parishioners.
Saint Nicholas Cathedral said it is “compelled to turn such messages to the police,” said Nicodemus. “We are grateful to the law enforcement agencies of New York for their prompt response to our messages and their constant support.”
The cathedral said that since February, its parishioners have been actively involved in collecting financial and humanitarian assistance for the victims of the armed conflict in Ukraine.
Half of the parishioners of the cathedral are Ukrainian, Nicodemus said
