Students sent home and police on patrol as Covid protests curbed

Chinese universities have sent students home and police fanned out in Beijing and Shanghai to prevent more protests after crowds angered by anti-covid restrictions called for president Xi Jinping to resign in the biggest show of public dissent in decades.

Authorities have eased some controls after demonstrations in at least eight mainland cities and Hong Kong – but showed no sign of backing off their larger zero-covid strategy which has confined millions of people to their homes for months at a time.

Security forces have detained an unknown number of people and stepped up surveillance.

With police out in force, there was no sign of protests yesterday Beijing, Shanghai or other major mainland cities that saw crowds rally over the weekend.

The widespread demonstrationswere unprecedented since the army crushed the 1989 student-led pro-democracy movementcentred on beijing' st ian an men Square.

A far smaller group gathered at a university in Hong Kong to protest over restrictions.

Beijing's Tsinghua University, where students rallied over the weekend, and other colleges in the capital and the southernprovince of Guangdong said they were protecting students from Covid-19 by sending them home.

Dispersing them to far-flung home towns also reduces the likelihood of more demonstrations. Chinese leaders are especially wary of universities, which have been hotbeds of activism including the Tiananmen protests.

Many people are nervous after police detained some pro testers and warned them against demonstrating again.

In Shanghai, officers stopped pedestrians and checked their phones on Monday night, according to a witness, possibly looking for apps such as Twitter that are banned in China or images of protests. photos

from a weekend protest showed police shoving people into their cars. Some were also swept up in raids after demonstrations ended.

Yesterday, about a dozen people gathered at the University of hong kong, chanting against virus restrictions and holding up sheets of paper with critical slogans.

The protesters held signs that read "Say no to Covid panic" and "No dictatorship but democracy".