Which large-scale protests during 2009–2017 turned into riots and where did they happen?
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Executive summary
Between 2009 and 2017 multiple large protests escalated into riots in cities worldwide and in the United States; notable examples include the July 2009 Ürümqi unrest in China where an initially peaceful protest became violent and official figures report hundreds killed [1], and U.S. protests over police killings that repeatedly turned disorderly — for example Oakland after the 2009 Oscar Grant shooting and other U.S. incidents through 2016–2017 [2] [3]. Available sources list many other 2009–2017 protests that became riots in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the U.S., but exact counts, casualty totals and causes differ between sources [4] [5] [1].
1. 2009 Ürümqi: a protest that exploded into ethnic rioting
A street protest on 5 July 2009 in Ürümqi, Xinjiang, began as a demonstration about the death of a Uyghur worker and escalated into violent attacks primarily targeting Han residents; official figures cited 197 deaths, and organizations such as Amnesty International document mass arrests and allege excessive force by security forces in the aftermath [1] [6]. Chinese authorities blamed organised separatists and online incitement, while critics and human-rights groups say police violence helped turn the demonstration into large-scale rioting [1] [6].
2. Police‑related U.S. protests that turned into riots: Oakland and beyond
U.S. incidents linked to police killings repeatedly produced protests that escalated into rioting between 2009 and 2017. The aftermath of Oscar Grant’s 2009 killing produced riots in Oakland and is explicitly listed among 2009 incidents of civil unrest [2] [3]. Lists of U.S. civil unrest also record later episodes tied to police shootings — for example, protests and disorder around Freddie Gray in 2015 and other incidents in 2016 and 2017 — underscoring a recurring pattern of protests over alleged police misconduct sometimes turning violent [7] [8].
3. European and British flare‑ups: football, austerity, and localized violence
Across Europe and the U.K., several protests during this period involved outbreaks of riotous violence. Wikipedia’s compilations include 2009 football-related riots (e.g., Široki Brijeg and Upton Park) and repeated episodes of disorder in the U.K., such as clashes during the 2009 G20 London summit and localized 2017 rioting outside a police station in Forest Gate [4] [9]. These events show riots during the period were not limited to a single issue but ranged from sport-related hooliganism to political and social demonstrations [4] [9].
4. 2011–2017: wider protest waves and points of violence
The 2010s produced overlapping protest waves — anti‑austerity, Occupy-inspired actions, and movements against corruption or authoritarianism — with some turning violent in different countries. Compilations of 21st‑century protests and year‑by‑year riot categories list numerous 2016–2017 incidents (including Honduras, Berkeley and the Unite the Right episode in Charlottesville) that involved civil unrest or violence, indicating a global pattern of protests occasionally devolving into riots [10] [5].
5. Disagreement in sources and limits of the record
Sources disagree on causes, death tolls and whether a given event began as a peaceful protest or was organized to provoke violence. For Ürümqi, Chinese officials and dissenting observers offer divergent narratives about who escalated the violence [1] [6]. Compilations such as “list of riots” and national incident lists aggregate events but vary in criteria and detail, so they produce different inventories of which protests “turned into riots” [2] [4] [5]. Available sources do not mention a single authoritative global count of protests‑turned‑riots for 2009–2017.
6. What to watch when verifying a protest‑to‑riot claim
Contemporary reporting and the compilations cited show that verification requires checking multiple things: eyewitness and human‑rights accounts for claims of excessive force [6], official tallies for casualties [1], and event catalogs to confirm arrests and locations [2] [4]. Researchers should treat lists and year categories as starting points, not conclusive summaries, because each source applies different inclusion rules and often reflects political framing [2] [10].
Sources used: Wikipedia lists and event pages compiled for incidents and riots (see entries for civil unrest, riots, and specific events) and Amnesty International and news overviews cited above [2] [4] [10] [9] [5] [7] [8] [1] [6].