1916 Equality Riots

The 1916 Equality Riots are a series of riots that took place in the year 1916 in Awarahl. The riots eventually spread to many urban centers accross Awarahl but they started and focused on the capital city of Bebįung (then still officially known by its Terminian name, Bed Kehb). The riots were the culmination of many of the tensions boiling in Awarahli society since the mid 19th century.

Background

Awarahl unilaterally declared independece from Terminia in 1872, and while that was a popular demand, by the time it was recognized by Terminia in 1887 following their defeat in the War of Supremacy the ethnic Terminian elites had already secured control of the Awarahli Archipelago, instituting a nominally democratic regime that highly restricted the civil and political liberties of non-Terminian citizens. This was not limited to electoral rights and extended to many facets of life, including exclusionary admission policies all accross public education.

1916

Agitation begun in late July 1916 as results were released for the admission into the 1916-17 schoolyear in the Bed Kehb Lyceum of Higher Education (that would eventually expand to become the University of Bebįung). From thousands of inscriptions not a single non-Terminian student was accepted. Given these results many students, mostly ethnic Chinh, organized a student strike and occupied the administrative buildings of several schools in Bebįung and in other Awarahli cities. When they moved to occupy the Lyceum in August 4th 1912 they were met with police violence which resulted in the death of several students, most notably twelve year old Jąą̀mh Ngdeà Èng and the partial burning of one of the Lyceum's buildings.

After this became public, Jąą̀mh Ngdeà Èng became a martyr for ethnic rights and the movement gained immense traction as many seasoned activists such as Jąą̀mh Ngdeì Lhìng picked up the cause nation-wide. The riots escalated into nation-wide conflict with Awarahli police forces until the army was called in October 1st 1912. With the start of army intervention many of the families of the student activists, most of them teenagers, fled Awarahl into neighbouring Qonklaks, the most notable of those being fifteen year old Ngdeà Mùng Rįng who would grow to become a general in the Qonklese Army.

The rioters held on entrenched in the narrow pathways of Old Town Bebįung until December 1912 when Jąą̀mh Ngdeì Lhìng fled to the Awarahli far west.

Aftermath

Given the events, the 1916-1917 schoolyear was suspended across the country. These riots generated immense pressure on the Awarahli Goverment, which realized the volume of conflict the ethnic tensions could produce, were pressured internally by the Social Liberal parliamentary bloc and by smaller scale rioting in the first quarter of 1917, and externally by international commentators as the death of a twelve year old child to police brutality made world news in 1917. This would eventually lead to the passing of a law granting equal political rights to non-Terminian Awarahli citizens in late 1917. The first elections organized under these new rules were held in 1919 and ended in a landslide victory by Jąą̀mh Ngdeì Lhìng, which had ammassed public support and political capital during the riots.