Xiomeran authorities have moved to suppress unprecedented protests during the past several days over a controversial relocation project that was recently announced.
The “New Cities Project” relocation plans to move up to ten million people who immigrated from Huenya after the Xiomeran Civil War out of major urban areas and into newly constructed communities, or into existing small towns and rural communities in need of a population boost. While the relocation aims to more evenly distribute Xiomera’s population and alleviate urban overcrowding, many of the immigrants from Huenya are strongly opposed to the relocation. They cite fears of being away from prime jobs, housing and opportunities provided by major Xiomeran cities.
Protests began taking place soon after the involuntary relocations were announced in the capital, Tlálacuetztla. They then spread to other cities, including Huitzitaca, Tecuala, Huajicori, Coyoacate and Huaxtumba. The protests featured both occupations of public spaces and attempted marches on government buildings, but were rapidly put down by the Imperial Police, Imperial Army and local police forces. Reports are that as many as 8,000 protesters have been arrested, quickly taking the life out of the protests. When asked by the media about the arrests, Minister of Justice Cuicanan was blunt. “If these people don’t want to live in the new cities we are so generously building for them, they can live in new jail cells that we build for them instead,” the Minister told state media network XIN.
The attempted protests were the largest example of public unrest in Xiomera since the war, but the speed with which they were shut down suggests that the Xiomeran government is still very much in control of the country. Xiomeran media has alleged that the protests were engineered by the Huenyan intelligence service in an attempt to cause violent unrest in the country. The Huenyan government has denied the charge, but Vice-Speaker Tiacihitli retorted that “any regime that has to violently keep people from speaking their minds clearly has more to fear than Huenya.”
