1716 Siseranist arrests in Hurmu
On 7.XV.1716 AN, the Hurmu Constabulary, supported by special auxiliaries, who included deputised members of the Vanguard Division, and security specialists contracted from the Honourable Company, staged a series of dawn raids around Huyenkula directed against a group of student radicals, intellectuals, and social deviants who had been brought together by a willingness to engage in prohibited rites of worship in propitiation of the demoness known as Sisera.
Several of the properties were discovered to have been rigged with improvised explosive devices linked to concealed pressure plates - resulting in detonations and ensuing firefights.
The Communist Workers' Party and the Social and Democratic Party of Hurmu denounced the arrests as fabricated and political in nature, as part of the ongoing political crisis, while the Hizb ul-ʿUmrāti ul-Hurmu decried the lack of religious freedom in Hurmu, and organized mass protests on the topic across Transprinitica.
Detainees taken in Huyenkula were transferred to secure facilities in the Southern District for interview under caution and initial administrative processing. Writs of summons were subsequently issued for several dozen further individuals named during those interviews, of whom the most prominent was the socialite Charlène Jolicoeur-Schafenweide.
By 1718 AN the wave of arrests appeared to have ended, with those detained being subsequently paroled, and sometimes, as in the case of the aforementioned Charlène Jolicoeur-Schafenweide, compensated with official sinecures.
International reactions
Sankt Ludwigshafen: Stadtholder Simon Schafenweide expressed his concern that peaceful believers were targeted by a collaboration of national police and the armed branch of a political party. He requested to know whether rumours were true that Ludwiggian students were among those arrested, and urged that the writ of summons against his wife, and Sankt Ludwighafen's First Lady, Charlène Jolicoeur-Schafenweide be withdrawn immediately.
Shireroth: Li Suyi, Minister for the Imperium in Apollonia, condemned the arrests and violence against Siseranists. Public protests in the largest eastern cities of Shireroth ensued, while several important nobles called for sanctions against the regime in Huyenkula. No official message was published by the Heavenly Palace, nor from the Mango Throne... yet.
- In the run-up to the elections, the Mango-Strengthening Movement eagerly made use of the incident to refer to the role of Humanists and the possible consequences of voting for such a party.
- The Imperial Humanist Party of Shireroth meanwhile lost no time in reminding the electorates of Benacian Shireroth of the adoration reserved for the demonic androcidal figure of Sisera in the Eastern Imperium.
