Another anonymous call for a fresh round of 'jasmine' rallies in Beijing and other key cities on Sunday has been widely circulated on the internet despite a show of force by police to thwart them.
The message purportedly from organisers of pro-democracy protests which had kept authorities busy over the past two weeks first appeared on Facebook, which was blocked on the mainland along with other social networking sites such as Twitter, yesterday.
The call for the rallies, inspired by the 'jasmine revolutions' sweeping across the Arab world came as Beijing markedly increased security as the annual gathering of the National People's Congress prepares to open on Saturday.
Although no organised protests were reported, tens of hundreds of police broke up large crowds at city centres in Beijing and Shanghai for a second Sunday and detained more than a dozen people, mostly overseas journalists, with many reportedly manhandled.
The European Union delegation to China and the US Embassy in Beijing issued statements separately yesterday, protesting against Beijing's 'harassment and detention' of foreign reporters.
The mysterious posting on a special Facebook page under the user name of 'China's jasmine revolution' urged people to show up at the designated meeting places in Beijing's Wangfujing shopping street and near People's Square in Shanghai at 2pm on Sunday.