Police in China’s financial capital were out in force over the weekend to crack down on Halloween festivities, after revelers last year wore politically sensitive costumes.

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.