That's right, police doing temporary crackdowns on this scale, in this manner, and for this purpose is 100% not a good thing. This is not analogous to a speed t

That's right, police doing temporary crackdowns on this scale, in this manner, and for this purpose is 100% not a good thing. This is not analogous to a speed trap or even DUI checkpoints. Are you saying that you literally can't think of a single way in which this may have been handled better by the police? If it's not even remotely understood to be illegal by the participants, why the heck would any police force in the world treat it like a honeypot, wait for everyone to assemble (like they apparently have been doing for years), then show up in riot gear and arrest everyone? That's crazy. By the way, it doesn't matter one bit if something analogous to this happens in the US sometimes, that doesn't make it any better. Not a bit. If this happened in the US people would be just as upset about it. I'm really confused why anyone would respond to something bad happening in China with, "but similar bad things happen in the US sometimes". That's really missing the point. That's like saying that human rights violations in the US somehow excuse human rights violations elsewhere. It's bad no matter where it happens and it doesn't do anyone any good to pretend otherwise.