At a top Chinese university, activist "confessions" strike fear into students

People enter and leave the gate of Peking University in Beijing, China, July 27, 2016. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

BEIJING (Reuters) - In late December, on the leafy streets of China's prestigious Peking University, a handful of students held up banners to protest against a takeover of the campus Marxist society by the Chinese Communist Party-affiliated Student Association.

Within an hour, police rushed at the group and dragged them into a nearby building, where, barricaded in classrooms, they were shown videos of recent graduates, including one from their own university, "confessing" to working with an "illegal organization" to arrange protests in southern China, students involved told Reuters.