The Norwalk Hour

China sends students home, police patrol to curb protests

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BEIJING — Chinese universiti­es sent students home and police fanned out in Beijing and Shanghai to prevent more protests Tuesday after crowds angered by severe anti-virus restrictio­ns called for leader 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 maintained they would stick to a “zero-COVID” strategy that 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 word of protests Tuesday in Beijing, Shanghai or other major mainland cities that were the scene last weekend of the most widespread protests since the army crushed the 1989 student-led Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement.

In Hong Kong, about a dozen people, mostly from the mainland, protested at a university.

Beijing’s Tsinghua University, where students protested over the weekend, and other schools in the capital and the southern province of Guangdong sent students home. The schools said they were being protected from COVID-19, but dispersing them to far-flung hometowns also reduces the likelihood of more demonstrat­ions. Chinese leaders are wary of universiti­es, which have been hotbeds of activism including the Tiananmen protests.

On Sunday, Tsinghua students were told they could go home early for the semester. The school, which is Xi’s alma mater, arranged buses to take them to the train station or airport.

Nine student dorms at Tsinghua were closed Monday after some students positive for COVID-19, according to one who noted the closure would make it hard for crowds to gather. The student gave only his surname, Chen, for fear of retributio­n from authoritie­s.

Beijing Forestry University also said it would arrange for students to return home. It said its faculty and students all tested negative for the virus.

At least 10 universiti­es have sent students home. Schools said classes and final exams would be conducted online.

Authoritie­s hope to “defuse the situation” by clearing out campuses, said Dali Yang, an expert on Chinese politics at the University of Chicago.

Depending on how tough a position the government takes, groups might take turns protesting, he said.

Police appeared to be trying to keep their crackdown out of sight, possibly to avoid drawing attention to the scale of the protests or encouragin­g others. Videos and posts on Chinese social media about protests were deleted by the ruling party’s vast online censorship apparatus.

There were no announceme­nts about detentions, though reporters saw protesters taken away by police, and authoritie­s warned some detained protesters against demonstrat­ing again.

In Shanghai, police stopped pedestrian­s and checked their phones Monday night, according to a witness, possibly looking for apps such as Twitter that are banned in China or images of protests. The witness, who insisted on anonymity for fear of arrest, said he was on his way to a protest but found no crowd there when he arrived.

On Tuesday, protesters at the University of Hong Kong chanted against virus restrictio­ns and held up sheets of paper with critical slogans. Some spectators joined in their chants.

 ?? Bertha Wang / Associated Press ?? A University staffer checks the identity of protesters during a protest gathering at the University of Hong Kong on Tuesday.
Bertha Wang / Associated Press A University staffer checks the identity of protesters during a protest gathering at the University of Hong Kong on Tuesday.

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