2021 Mulawil Halaab protests
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| 2021 Mulawil Halaab protests | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Global reaction to the Mutul | |||
 Tyreseian protestors burning a Mutulese flag in front of the Mutulese embassy, New Tyria, 2021 | |||
| Date | 30 August 2021 — 21 September 2021 | ||
| Location | |||
| Caused by | Mutulese human rights violations, results of the 85th Pitz World Court | ||
| Goals | Provoke a diplomatic reaction from the Mutul (failed) Provoke Tyreseian sanctions against the Mutul (failed) | ||
| Methods | Flag-burning (initial), diplomatic protests, digital disinformation campaigns | ||
| Status | Unresolved | ||
| Parties to the civil conflict | |||
| Casualties | |||
| Death(s) | None | ||
| Injuries | 246 total | ||
| Arrested | 34 Tyreseians | ||
The 2021 Mulawil Halaab protests, also referred to as the Tyreso-Mutulese Hooligan War of 2021, was a series of diplomatic incidents and protests following the 85th Mulawail Halaab, the global championship for the sport of Pitz. Following Tyreseia's victory in the final game, a series of flag-burning protests were initiated in New Tyria and Yu, the Mutulese city hosting the competition. The initial protests failed to provoke the intended government reaction to the Mutul, which remained mostly silent save for a mild statement from the Josanek Bakab. Tyreseians, however, were generally outraged at news that the flag-burning in Yu had provoked a near-deadly knife fight with Mutulese fans. Protests continued and intensified in Tyreseia, with anti-Mutulese fervor reaching a fever pitch. A riot broke out in front of the Mutul embassy complex on September 5th, damaging windows and disrupting normal diplomatic procedures. In addition, the Tyreseian People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs condemned the Mutul's inability to stop its citizens from being harmed, while the Mutulese embassy issued a statement condeming the damage to their embassy. In the meantime, false rumors of abduction and human sacrifice being practiced on foreign tourists spread following the disappearance of Tyreseian tourist Jerunimu Sichu. Further protests continued through much of September. It was later revealed these rumors were untrue when Sichu reappeared some weeks later, having gone missing as a result of unrelated kidney harvesting by organized crime. The incident retains importance in Tyreseia as a study of crowd manipulation and of the power of internet disinformation, which until that time had not been a real issue in Tyreseia.
Background
Flag-burning and pitz are very popular forms of expression and entertainment in Tyreseia. Flag-burning, in particular, is held as a sacrosanct political right, frequently practiced to the point where it has diminished to a near-harmless symbol of disagreement. In Tyreseia, as in other nations around the world, pitz has attracted a reputation for violent and uncouth hooliganism, deriving from the fearsome reputation of the Mutul's own hooligans: the Chokaj Ch'ajom. Following Tyreseia's victory over the Mutul in the penultimate game of the 85th Mulawail Halaab, many of these rowdy fans sought to prove their own ferocity by obtaining a condemnation for their behavior from the Mutulese government. Dressing their aims up in a veneer of concern for Mutulese human rights violations and intoxicated by Tyreseia's first-ever Mulawil Halaab victory, the various hooligans in Yu and New Tyria decided that flag-burning might be the easiest and most visible way to provoke a reaction from the Mutulese government. Apparently unbeknownst to these protestors, the flag of the Mutul is not an especially sacred symbol, and was very unlikely to provoke such a reaction.
Initial Protests
Immediately following the conclusion of the final game against Tsurushima on August 5th, Tyreseian fans exited the stadium at Yu and began acquiring Mutulese flags and lighters with which to burn them. At around 30 minutes after the end of the game, videos were uploaded to social media sites Rad.io and AdTab directed towards various Mutulese celebrity and official government accounts featuring flag-burning and shouted obscenities in Tyrian, Latin, and some Hebrew. The initial videos received much ridicule from Mutulese, Tyreseian, and even outside foreign accounts. The videos, however, also attracted the attention of members of the Chokaj Ch'ajom, who began confronting Tyreseian fans shortly after their publication. The confrontations quickly turned violent, and by an hour after game's end, clips of fight videos from around the stadium quarter were circulating online. Law enforcement in the area was quick to enact standard Mutli crowd control techniques, moving fights and brawls away from large gatherings of people and isolate them, all the while dispersing crowds. At around 2 hours in, however, the crowds of both Chokaj Ch'ajom and Tyreseian hooligans grew too large and violent for the local Yu police units, which were forced to retreat and regroup for a time to summon reinforcements and prevent what fights they could from developing. For a time, already-extant fights were allowed to grow unchecked and quickly spread. Nonviolent Tyreseian and Mutulese bystanders were caught in the middle of street brawls throughout the night, especially in the early minutes of the confrontations. The creation of self-sustaining street violence was not mirrored in Tyreseia, where units of the New Tyrian Constabulary and auxiliaries from the Republican Guard quickly broke up what sparse fights there were between Mutulese citizens and Tyreseians.
Meanwhile, as the night of August 5th wore on, the fighting in the streets of Yu quickly escalated into one large melee as Chokaj Ch'ajomob introduced weapons, such as knives, bats, and batons. Such weapons ended up quelling the fighting, as many of the Tyreseian hooligans fled due to a lack of weapons of their own. Several unidentified Tyreseian men, however, received serious stab wounds during an altercation at 11:57 PM local time, and were placed in intensive care in critical condition. This dramatic near-death fight proved the high water mark of fighting, as reinforcements for the Yu police arrived shortly after midnight local time on the 6th. The combined law enforcement units were thus able to quickly and decisively intervene, stopping the Mutulese hooligans from pursuing their Tyreseian counterparts. Later investigations have concluded that it was during this time of chaotic fighting and fleeing that 39-year-old Jerunimu Sichu was kidnapped by organized crime present at the sporting event. While exact circumstances are unclear, it is more than likely that he was discovered while intoxicated, and either persuaded or kidnapped by agents of organized crime unrelated to the sports riots off of the streets, using the situation to their advantage.
It was at around this time in the early hours of the 6th of August that the Mutulese Embassy in Tyreseia issued a statement via Rad.io and official news services that read, in part:
"His Holiness is disappointed in the unsportsmanlike behaviors of both Tyreseian fans and His own Faithfuls' on the holy ground of this sport both nations venerate. His Holiness spreads His thanks to the New Tyrian Constabulary for their hard work protecting their People and His Faithfuls currently overseas."
The Tyreseian Embassy in the Mutul remained silent as staff of the Foreign Commissariat scrambled to gather sufficient intelligence on what was going on in the city at the time. Some in Tyreseia grew outraged at both the condescending response from the Mutul and the utter lack of a response from their own government. On the morning of August 7th, as both the Yu hospitals and airport filled with Tyreseian hooligans, a crowd gathered outside the Mutulese Embassy complex in New Tyria. By this time, the hooligan street brawls of the other day were national news; the scale of the fighting had obscured for many the important context of the Tyreseians flag-burning as a deliberate provocation. As a result, many of the protestors in front of the Embassy were under the false impression that masses of Chokaj Ch'ajomob had descended upon largely peaceful fans without warning or pretext. This would set the stage for later waves of misinformation, which saw social media forums turn into echo chambers that amplified increasingly-alarming anti-Mutulese rhetoric on Tyreseian webspace.