DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Activists designated Saturday a day of protest at the COP28 summit in Dubai. But the rules of the game in the tightly controlled United Arab Emirates at the site supervised by the United Nations meant sharp restrictions on what demonstrators could say, where they could walk and what their signs could portray.

       At times, the controls bordered on the absurd.

       Advertisement

       A small group of demonstrators protesting the detention of activists — one from Egypt and two from the UAE — were not allowed to hold up signs bearing their names. A late afternoon demonstration of around 500 people, the largest seen at the climate conference, couldn’t go beyond the U.N.-governed Blue Zone in this autocratic nation. And their calls for a cease-fire in the war in the Gaza Strip couldn’t actually name the states involved.