Shanghai police crack down on Halloween costumes, partygoers

Police in Shanghai are cracking down on Halloween festivities, amid concerns that revelers will once again turn up in costumes considered politically sensitive.

HONG KONG — Police in Shanghai were out in force over the weekend to crack down on Halloween festivities, amid concerns that revelers would once again turn up in costumes considered politically sensitive.

Last year huge crowds turned out to celebrate Halloween around Julu Road, in the heart of China’s financial capital. It was the first Halloween since China emerged from three years of pandemic isolation, and some people dressed up in hazmat suits and other costumes related to Covid and other social and economic issues.

Others wore costumes made of blank sheets of paper, a reference to rare mass demonstrations in late 2022 in Shanghai and other Chinese cities against the country’s “zero-Covid” restrictions, which included a harsh two-month lockdown in Shanghai. Chinese authorities responded by lifting the nationwide restrictions all at once, unleashing Covid-19 on a population with little previous exposure to it.

Halloween revelers in Shanghai on Sunday.CFOTO / Future Publishing via Getty ImagesIn the days leading up to Halloween on Thursday, Shanghai police have set up makeshift barriers on Julu and nearby roads, deterring partygoers from gathering.

Video shared on social media and geolocated by NBC News shows dozens of police officers crossing a road near Zhongshan Park where Halloween revelers gathered in recent days. In another video, a man who dressed up as a Buddha was taken away by two police officers near the same location.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/shanghai-puts-stop-spooky-season-rcna177545

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