Readers Demand Riot Police Be Issued Unsolicited Applause Badges After Crowds Outshine Them
Letter-writers to a regional daily report admiration for demonstrators so profound that the national police have been ordered to join the chanting.
Readers of a leading regional daily have collectively petitioned the Interior Ministry to require every riot unit in the country to stand at attention for the full length of any march, after letters to the newspaper overwhelmingly described the crowds as «magnificent» and «frankly too large for one street».
The Interior Ministry responded within the hour by suspending all tear-gas training in favour of a new mandatory course in call-and-response slogans. Officers in the eastern districts are now required to carry printed placards, and the ministry has ordered that each shield be fitted with a handle wide enough for a banner. A spokesman confirmed that some units have already begun practising the chant at the canteen, where a canteen wall has been repainted in the colours of the most-quoted demonstration.
Editors at the newspaper said the volume of mail forced them to hire two additional staff to sort letters, and to rent a warehouse for the surplus. Reader correspondence, they noted, has so far arrived in unanswerable quantity, with one retired schoolteacher sending a hand-drawn map of every intersection she had walked that month. The paper has announced a standing column devoted entirely to thanking the crowds, to be read aloud at every bus stop.
Asked whether the admiration extended to the small minority who had broken windows, a ministry official said the question was being addressed by a committee formed that morning. The committee, he added, would report after the weekend's mobilisation, and its first recommendation has already been drafted: that the windows themselves be replaced with clear glass, so that everyone can see the crowd more clearly.
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