Know your rights
Who can argue with these three comments from the European Court of Human Rights about the right to protest:
The right of expression is "one of the essential foundations of [a democratic] society, one of the basic conditions for its progress, and for the development of every man ... it is applicable not only to ... 'ideas' that are favourably received ... but also to those that offend shock or disturb the state or any sector of the population. Such are the demands of pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness without which there is no 'democratic society'.''
Or this, endorsed by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary in its report following the G20 protests, of how protests should be policed: "The original British policing model ... places a high value on tolerance and winning the consent of the public [through] an approachable, impartial, accountable style of policing based on minimal force."
Or even this, from the House of Lords, on those who overstep the criminal law: "Civil disobedience on conscientious grounds has a long and honourable history in this country. People who break the law to affirm their belief in the injustice of a law or government action are sometimes vindicated by history. The suffragettes are an example, which comes immediately to mind. It is the mark of a civilised community that it can accommodate protests and demonstrations of this kind."
The reality, however, does not always match the rhetoric, for at least two reasons - one to do with power, the other pragmatism.
This is another unofficial rule of law, obvious from events abroad right now, but discernible in Britain too - the more effective a movement is in challenging the powerful, the wealthy and the state itself, the more vigorously the state will react.
It does so with strong armed policing and ruthless sentences from judges - see the treatment of young Muslim men protesting against Israel's offensive against Gaza and Unite Against Fascism campaigners in Lancashire against the English Defence League.
And this is not even to go into the state's ultimate remedy of legislating against an entire movement.
But there is a second strand, born of media-savvy police managers anxious to avoid images of police clashing violently with protesters over whom they have lost control and also seeking to secure easy clear-up rates.
Two developments bear this out.
- First, there is kettling where the innocent are literally lumped in with those suspected of violent intentions.
- Second, there is the dispensation at police stations after arrest of "cautions" - formal warnings to those suspected of an offence, diverting the allegations from court scrutiny and staining a protester's record, and, with it, their employment and travel plans.
There are at least three positives though.
- Despite a concerted international effort to undermine it, the European Convention on Human Rights contains important rights for protesters.
- There is not just freedom of expression (article 10) and freedom of assembly (article 11) but also the right to liberty and security (article 5, deployed successfully to challenge the use of terrorist stop and search powers against protesters) and the right to privacy (article 8, used to deal a blow to the police's strategy of building a gallery of protesters' photographs).
Building on these rights, and where the police get it wrong, they can, in theory at least, be held accountable by complaints to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, civil legal claims for false imprisonment, wrongful arrest, assault and the "judicial review" of unlawful police tactics.
- And finally there is the alchemy of media coverage and public opinion on the one hand and collective action at protests and beyond on the other.
The policing of the G20 protests - including the tragic death of Ian Tomlinson - put the right to demonstrate back up the agenda and police tactics under the microscope. Solidarity and the camera phone can keep it there.
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This note was first published in the Morning Star on 25th March 2011, the day before the TUC anti-cuts demonstration in London