Shanghai police patrolled the downtown streets over the weekend to crack down on Halloween celebrations in China’s most international city. Local authorities appeared to be trying to prevent a repeat of last year, when Halloween revelers thronged central Shanghai, with some dressed in costumes that poked fun of the Chinese stock market, unemployment among young people and the nation’s COVID-19 policies.
This year, the police presence, online postings about a crackdown and constant rain kept the revelry to a minimum.
At least half a dozen people in costumes in Shanghai’s Zhongshan Park on Friday were seen being led away by police.
Photo: Reuters
There was no official citywide notice banning Halloween, although local district officials sent notices to businesses in advance of the weekend encouraging family-friendly celebrations and discouraging activities in which adults would be wearing costumes.
A bar and restaurant owner in the Jing An nightlife district was asked to sign an agreement issued by the local district authorities pledging that they would not organize any activities such as costume contests “to maintain good social order and public image,” he said on Friday.
Jing An district police did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
One partygoer was dressed as a skeleton on Friday in Jing An district until he was detained by police, escorted to an administrative building and asked to remove his make-up, said the bar owner, who declined to be identified for privacy reasons.
By Saturday, news of Shanghai’s crackdown on Halloween was a trending topic on Chinese social media sites.
“Even in relatively open Shanghai, the scale of freedom is constantly shrinking,” one person wrote.
Officially sanctioned Halloween celebrations at the Shanghai Disney Resort and Happy Valley Amusement Park went ahead as scheduled.
WAKE-UP CALL: Firms in the private sector were not taking basic precautions, despite the cyberthreats from China and Russia, a US cybersecurity official said A ninth US telecom firm has been confirmed to have been hacked as part of a sprawling Chinese espionage campaign that gave officials in Beijing access to private texts and telephone conversations of an unknown number of Americans, a top White House official said on Friday. Officials from the administration of US President Joe Biden this month said that at least eight telecommunications companies, as well as dozens of nations, had been affected by the Chinese hacking blitz known as Salt Typhoon. US Deputy National Security Adviser for Cyber and Emerging Technologies Anne Neuberger on Friday told reporters that a ninth victim
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war in the latest such swap that saw the release of hundreds of captives and was brokered with the help of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), officials said on Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that 189 Ukrainian prisoners, including military personnel, border guards and national guards — along with two civilians — were freed. He thanked the UAE for helping negotiate the exchange. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 150 Russian troops were freed from captivity as part of the exchange in which each side released 150 people. The reason for the discrepancy in numbers
A shark attack off Egypt’s Red Sea coast killed a tourist and injured another, authorities said on Sunday, with an Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs source identifying both as Italian nationals. “Two foreigners were attacked by a shark in the northern Marsa Alam area, which led to the injury of one and the death of the other,” the Egyptian Ministry of Environment said in a statement. A source at the Italian foreign ministry said that the man killed was a 48-year-old resident of Rome. The injured man was 69 years old. They were both taken to hospital in Port Ghalib, about 50km north
MISSING: Prosecutors urged the company to move workers out of poor living conditions to hotels, but residents said many workers had already left the town Brazil has stopped issuing temporary work visas for BYD, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday, in the wake of accusations that some workers at a site owned by the Chinese electric vehicle producer had been victims of human trafficking. The announcement came days after labor authorities said they found 163 Chinese workers who had been brought to Brazil irregularly in “slavery-like” conditions at the BYD factory construction site in the northeastern state of Bahia. The workers were employed by contractor Jinjiang Group, which has denied any wrongdoing. Later, the authorities also said the workers were victims of human trafficking,
RSS