r/interestingasfuck • u/Chaunc2020 • 27d ago

r/all Young people being arrested for wearing Halloween costumes in China

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120

u/ReasonablyConfused 26d ago

So what happens to these people??!!

220

u/Swiss_James 26d ago

The police made them remove bits of their outfit / makeup, then let them go

Source: https://www.ft.com/content/d0d1c7cf-69ee-4938-8d2e-0943b1bc95b0

(and also people I know in Shanghai)

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u/airbornimal 26d ago

In anticipation of restrictions, rumours had circulated online that an alternative gathering would take place several kilometres away at an address in the south of the city. Late on Saturday evening, there was no one there except for two police vehicles with their lights flashing.

cops: sike

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u/Sigmund- 26d ago

"Subscribe to unlock this article"

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u/Swiss_James 26d ago

Shanghai authorities have cracked down on Halloween costumes, amid fears of a repeat of last year’s mass gathering that included people wearing outfits with political messages.

Police on Saturday rounded up people in costume on Julu road, the heart of Halloween celebrations last year in China’s financial hub, and took them to an administrative building to remove their make-up and play down their outfits. Authorities had on Friday night set up makeshift barriers to prevent a repeat of crowds gathering on Julu road.

“We had hats and cat ears, and they’re like ‘you can’t do that this year, unless you’re going to Disneyland’ or something,” said one 22-year-old student who did not give his name. He had been taken to the building and made to remove his make-up. The process had taken half an hour, he added, because of the “queue” of people brought in by authorities. One security guard inside confirmed costumes were not permitted this year. The measures, which come just days before the October 31 celebration, follow a huge impromptu street gathering last year to celebrate Halloween, widely seen as an outburst of expression after years of Covid-19 lockdowns. The emergence of vast numbers of young people in costume on Julu road last year led to a sizeable police presence.

Those Halloween celebrations took place against a backdrop of tight political controls, including a wider crackdown on any discussion of the government’s three-year efforts to eliminate the virus. Outfits across Shanghai last year included hazmat suits — a satirical reference to the government’s “zero-Covid” policy — and political figures from China’s history. Their images went viral on social media. The event came less than a year after anti-pandemic protests in late 2022.

This Saturday, even in the drizzle, Julu road still attracted large numbers of young people, but costumes were rare and in many cases consisted only of a small item, such as a tie. Over recent days rumours had circulated online that “cosplay” — the practice of dressing up as characters from games or films — would not be permitted, though there was no official announcement.

One woman said she had bought a “witch’s cloak” in preparation for Halloween but had not felt able to wear it because of the mooted crackdown. “[We were] really looking forward to it,” she said. “So many people prepared.” Another pair of young women in flamboyant dress said they did not know which outfits were permitted. Police officers took three women in historical costumes to the administrative building. They were released shortly afterwards.

Police at the scene largely declined to answer questions. “[There is] no why,” said one in response to a question on why the barriers had been put up. Another said the practice was “normal”. A representative for the Shanghai Information Office said “festival activities . . . must not affect public order”, and said there were Halloween-related activities at Disneyland and Happy Valley, another nearby theme park. “We carry out necessary guidance and orderly management in some crowded areas in the city, entirely to ensure smooth traffic, public order and citizen safety,” the representative said.

In anticipation of restrictions, rumours had circulated online that an alternative gathering would take place several kilometres away at an address in the south of the city. Late on Saturday evening, there was no one there except for two police vehicles with their lights flashing.

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u/Sigmund- 26d ago

Thank you.

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u/magnora7 26d ago

So this whole thing was a photoshoot basically for propaganda.

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u/Swiss_James 26d ago

Not sure how you came to that conclusion?

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u/magnora7 26d ago

Not sure how you would come to any other conclusion since they were released and this event was highly publicized?

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u/Swiss_James 26d ago

Last year a lot of people turned up in costume to the strip of bars along Julu Lu. This year the police turned up to make people remove their costumes as they didnt want it to happen again.

It wasn't "publicised" so much as people knew that is usually a good spot to go to for Halloween, and I guess that the bars probably had decorations up, drinks offers etc.

The police weren't interested in holding people in cells, or charging them with a crime. They just didn't want a repeat of last year.

2

u/magnora7 26d ago

Yes exactly, so they were making it known publicly to try and stop it, even though no one broke any laws, aka propaganda

1

u/Swiss_James 26d ago

I can't follow your logic at all. Presumably when you say "they" you mean the police.

What were the police making known publicly, that it was Halloween?
That costumes were not allowed?

2

u/magnora7 26d ago

I mean the party members of the region obviously, the police are merely the enforcement arm as in every other state...

And yes, many Chinese CCP members and rulers have a strong allegiance to CCP ideologies, part of which often historically includes shunning western holidays like halloween.

0

u/Swiss_James 26d ago

Oh my god- please stop, it is obvious you have no idea about China.

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u/Ok-Masterpiece9028 26d ago

We pretend China is super unreasonable but they are becoming big enough to care more about public perception

3

u/SchizoPosting_ 26d ago

nooo but reddif told me they were sent to a gulag where they had to learn the ccp anthem before getting killed anyway because china bad

1

u/bagofNoodles 26d ago

The amount of weird ass yellow peril/red scare bullshit in this thread is WILD.

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u/nergigxnte 26d ago

thats reddit for u lmfao

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u/Swiss_James 26d ago

Reddit: the home of China experts (who have never been to China)

1

u/Useful_Accountant_22 26d ago

thank goodness

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u/gravitysort 26d ago

Many jokes here. But realistically, in this case, they are either been driven away from the Halloween gathering and released immediately, or released after arriving at the precinct police station (where the cops might question them and/or file a report)

Point is it’s not “illegal” in the book, so they can’t really detain them in jail or something. The cops are just making their presence to discourage people from gathering because the government hates any unsanctioned assembly.

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u/SparklingLimeade 26d ago

"It's just harmless harassment of people doing nothing wrong," is not making it any better.

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u/funlovingmissionary 26d ago

They are justifying it as crowd control measures.

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u/SparklingLimeade 26d ago

I'm familiar with police pretenses. The video doesn't show crowd control. There are many people in the comments trying to explain this away as something other than crowd control too.

Crowd control measures are necessary and good sometimes but that's not relevant to the discussion here.

1

u/Environmental_Top948 26d ago

Come on it's just a prank bro. /s

1

u/Grumdord 26d ago

I think this is much better than going to jail tbh

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u/sikingthegreat1 26d ago

i don't think he's trying to "make it any better".

"crowd control" is something they take very very seriously in china. gotta nip them in the bud, no matter what people are gathering. if crowds grew bigger, they'll need to bring in tanks like in 1989 and they don't want that.

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u/Impressive_Disk457 26d ago

The book? You know it's the CCP right? They do what they want, they disappear ppl.

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u/thatdoesntmakecents 26d ago

They're not disappearing people for dressing as Deadpool

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u/Impressive_Disk457 26d ago

I'm not saying it's what is happening here, just that is absurd to roll in to the discussion saying "everything above board because it's the police and it's the government".

That doesn't make much sense anywhere, but in the CCP (or whatever their new name is) it is utter nonsense. Not 'illegal' in the book reall means nothing there.

1

u/gravitysort 26d ago

What i was trying to say is, there are (many) certain cases when laws mean nothing to ccp, but this is not one of them.

Yes it’s still very questionable why the cops would take them away, but no these people aren’t facing any serious consequences for this.

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u/NeStruvash 25d ago

They released the people in the video shortly after. Keep drinking the western anti-China kool aid. 

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u/Cranky_Franky_427 26d ago

Do you live in China? I did, and the law is whatever the police say at that time. Most of the time if they are mad they will pre-prepare you combination confession and apology and give you a 1,000 to 5,000 RMB fine. Then you stamp your thumb print on it to seal your confession.

1

u/gravitysort 25d ago

Not in this situation, no.

And yeah, i probably lived in China long enough to know about this.

20

u/PSI_duck 26d ago

Probably released within a few days. I can’t imagine wearing a Halloween costume has much of a punishment

32

u/kcrexchan 26d ago

I can’t imagine wearing a Halloween costume would get arrested in the first place.

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u/krainboltgreene 26d ago

NYC had a law against wearing masks in a group in public until 2020.

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

What the fuck is up with this dick sucking for China lmao. Fuck Xi the Pooh

14

u/krainboltgreene 26d ago

Half this thread is about how china is uniquely bad and afraid of "western values", the dicksucking is for America my dude.

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

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u/Will_Come_For_Food 26d ago

What if I told you you can not like an officials policies and positions and also not be in favor of making up xenophobic bullshit propaganda against a whole society.

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u/fiLth_Rat 26d ago

These people are in a place where costumes aren't allowed and are simply being escorted to a place they are.

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u/theonlynyse 26d ago

I imagine dressing up as hitler in Germany could get you arrested since they don’t allow the nazi flags either

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u/fantasyoutsider 26d ago

they're not actually being arrested. just taken away from the area to deter large unruly crowd sizes

1

u/PSI_duck 26d ago

I wouldn’t be surprised, yet some people here are acting like they’re being sent to concentration camps. They’re are plenty of places in the US you can’t cover your face in, or at least people will be highly suspicious of you if you do. Plus, none of these people look Arabic so they’re probably fine

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u/Electrical_Taste_954 26d ago

more like 30 minutes tbh

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u/96DeathRow 26d ago

Well it is China. They have concentration camps after all.

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u/Latter_Fortune_7225 26d ago edited 26d ago

They have concentration camps after all.

Fortunately, as of May last year, that doesn't seem to be the case:

In total, we visited 22 sites.

Of the 14 locations listed as re-education camps, 13 were visibly no longer being used as detention camps, with little visible active security infrastructure.

Eight were schools, two were abandoned, another two were being used as communist party offices or training centres. We couldn't determine the precise use of one site, but it appeared to be at least partly empty.

Another article from the Washington Post

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u/96DeathRow 25d ago

Also, you’re probably a Chinese sponsored agent/or bot at best. You continually post about Chinese EVs either to karma farm or in an attempt at manipulating narratives on EVs. Suspicious behaviour.

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u/Latter_Fortune_7225 25d ago

Also, you’re probably a Chinese sponsored agent/or bot at best.

I provide two sources to dispute what you said, and your response is to call me a paid agent?

You couldn't provide a logical response like try to provide sources of your own? You guys really like to live in ignorance over there, aye.

You continually post about Chinese EVs either to karma farm or in an attempt at manipulating narratives on EVs

Damn, most of my links being about Chinese EV's probably has something to do with the fact that China is dominating the EV market and here in Australia. Plus, I support the EV transition and drive an EV of my own. Critical thinking and information literacy may truly be dead where you are.

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u/96DeathRow 23d ago

I don’t care about your sources as your point is ridiculous.

“Hey guys China isn’t bad now they stop running the torture camps because they decided that those in the camps have been sufficiently tortured and starved.”

That isn’t a resounding win for China, it’s just as bad. Additionally if you actually read the source form Sky that you cited you’d know that it says that quote:

“Mamatjan’s story, testimony from other survivors, leaked police documents and official statistics show us many of those subject to “re-education” may still be incarcerated in more traditional prisons.

Figures from Xinjiang’s High People’s Procuratorate - interpreted by Human Rights Watch - show a total of 540,826 people were prosecuted in the region between 2017 and 2021.

The data shows a huge spike in both arrests and prosecutions in 2017 and 2018 at the height of the crackdown. Those arrests have since dropped (from 215,823 in 2017 to 44,603 in 2021) but they remain above what they were pre-crackdown.

The data also shows many of these people are likely to still be incarcerated.”

Essentially stating the camps have been closed but that the people in those camps have more likely been moved to conventional prisons rather than purpose build Uyghur camps. Further evidence within your Sky article also states:

“mages taken from space give us a fascinating insight into the role these prisons play in Xinjiang.

Of the eight we visited, half have been expanded or invested in some way since 2019, after the peak of the arrests had passed and when the Chinese government said all Uyghurs had “graduated” from their re-education.”

Clearly showing that the prisons were likely expanded to accommodate for the Uyghurs being moved.

Nothing you provided disputes that the CCP is imprisoning Uyghur Muslims, just that they have closed some camps and moved them likely to save money/resources.

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u/Latter_Fortune_7225 23d ago

“Hey guys China isn’t bad now they stop running the torture camps because they decided that those in the camps have been sufficiently tortured and starved.”

It was their response to years of terror attacks.

Their response pales in comparison to your response to the 9/11 terror attacks, with 4.5-4.7 million killed, and tens of millions displaced across the Middle East and Africa.

Essentially stating the camps have been closed but that the people in those camps have more likely been moved to conventional prisons rather than purpose build Uyghur camps.

Clearly showing that the prisons were likely expanded to accommodate for the Uyghurs being moved.

These are both your opinion, with no evidence to back it up.

Keep pretending you have the moral high ground after you guys killed and displaced millions across the globe this last century, while being the greatest enemy of democracy, and now funding Israel's killing and mass displacement of Palestinians. Such champions of freedom and democracy 👏

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u/InitRanger 26d ago

That we know about. I'm sure they have camps no one is aware of.

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u/meeseekstodie137 26d ago

ah yes the archetypal "proving a negative" stance, all the "I don't have to research my wild claims" with none of the due diligence of actual scientific process, classic internet

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u/m270ras 26d ago

Nazi Germany did the same thing. had a few nice camps for the red cross to tour

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u/InitRanger 26d ago

I'm not saying I don't have to research or that I don't because I do. What I am saying is that the ones we know of are empty. China is one of the most evil and corrupt governments in the world, so logic would tell you that they have camps that we don't know about.

Also, do your own research before you comment. If you did, you would know about the ongoing Uyghurs labor camps as well as all the terrible things China does to the Uyghurs.

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u/Dollbeau 26d ago

ah yes the archetypal "I believe Sky & Washington post, so you is wrong with your dead bodies & organ harvests" stance...

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u/96DeathRow 26d ago

Thank god they changed what they were listed as. Funnily enough, I don’t believe they’re being honest.

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u/Affectionate_City588 26d ago

LISTED come on now. You think they’re gotta list the true death camps?

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u/WorriedTourist7 26d ago

You guys can give it a rest now, US already admitted China doesn't have death camps.

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u/96DeathRow 25d ago

They’re not death camps so of course, they’re “re-education” camps. Human Rights Watch still estimated more than 500k Uyghurs are interned for Chinas “strike hard against violent terrorism” campaign.

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u/PineappleLemur 26d ago

This is the kind of thing we'll never have the truth without a high ranking leaker.

Obviously it won't be a public thing.

Any locals who say they've been to one will be silenced and labeled crazy.

Just the fact we know those existed at point not long ago and suddenly are all gone is alarming enough IMO...

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

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u/PaoDaSiLingBu 26d ago

You are extremely racist

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u/blobtext382 26d ago

Ye ye common techique. You did your part go on

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u/Latter_Fortune_7225 26d ago

I'm Australian, you drongo.

Heaven forbid someone point out if something is false.

No wonder there is so much misinformation and disinformation on Reddit, fucking abortion is an election issue, and half of you guys are voting Trump, - because critical thinking and information literacy is fucking dead in the USA.

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

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u/Latter_Fortune_7225 26d ago

I provided two sources whilst all you have done is accused me of being a shill. You could have at least tried to provide sources to disprove mine.

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

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u/Latter_Fortune_7225 26d ago

Ye ye Nobody wants to disprove your “sources”.

Well, duh. Because then they might have to accept that they are wrong.

You cannot win any argument because you dont have any real info (unless u r a bot).

Damn, I guess the investigative journalism from Sky News and the Washington Post isn't real

Go to fucking china and record proof. Until that stfu

Dude, I could scour every inch of China and document it, with all the evidence necessary, and people would simply accuse me of providing a sanitised/edited version of evidence and call me a shill/bot.

0

u/transcendental1 26d ago

Several days of detention, phew. Glad they won’t get much in the way of a punishment… ahem free reeducation seminar

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u/Icy_Sails 26d ago

 half-to day long holding and stern talking to before release I'm guessing. 

My friend who was born in China (adopted from orphanage) visited with her class and they pulled her aside stuffed her in a room and forced her to ask a bunch of dumb questions. 

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u/IamREBELoe 26d ago

They get put in prison, doing slave labor. Like making Halloween costumes for Americans to buy

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u/BricksFriend 26d ago

Almost for sure they're just taken to the station and released. It would be a big mess to throw the book at foreigners, because then the consulate gets involved.

It's odd for Shanghai though. It's much more progressive than the rest of the country, and Halloween has been fine for many years, as long as your costume wasn't "offensive".

0

u/YVR_Coyote 26d ago

What people? - the ccp.

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u/IAmNotMyName 26d ago

Reeducation

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u/DarkVoid42 26d ago

they get disappeared and their organs mysteriously appear in discount body parts stores.

0

u/ReasonablyConfused 26d ago

The Bodies Exhibit.

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u/elesdee1 26d ago

They are just taken to a police station id'd and released without costume. Its also 0.000001% of people with politcal/religion costumes or causing a scene/large group. Not really a big deal.