Countries around World Are Revoking Freedom of Assembly

[KamaAina]

http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/countries-around-world-are-revoking-freedom-of-assembly/

On March 26, without much fanfare or attention from U.S. media, the Spanish government ended freedom of assembly. In the face of popular opposition (80 percent of Spaniards oppose it), the upper house passed the Citizens’ Security Law. Under the provision, which goes into effect on July 1, police will have the discretionary ability to hand out fines up to $650,000 to “unauthorized” demonstrators who protest near a transport hub or nuclear power plant. They will be allowed to issue fines of up to $30,000 for taking pictures of police during protest, failing to show police ID, or just gathering in an unauthorized way near government buildings....

Spain is only the latest “democracy” to consign freedom of assembly to the dustbin. While earlier eras of protest and riot sometimes wrested concessions from the state, today the government’s default response is to implement increasingly draconian laws against the public exercise of democracy. It raises the question: How many rights must be abrogated before a liberal democracy becomes a police state?

In Quebec, where student strikes against austerity once again disrupt civil society, marches are being declared illegal before they’ve even begun. At the height of the last wave of student strikes in 2012, the Quebec legislature passed Bill 78, which made pickets and unauthorized gatherings of over 50 people illegal, and punished violations with fines of up to $5,000 for individuals and $125,000 for organizations. Similar fines are once again imposed on protesters.

Last October, a new law was passed in Turkey allowing police to search demonstrators and their homes without warrants or even grounds for suspicion, a much looser definition and harsher punishment for resisting arrest, and making covering your face at a protest or shouting particular slogans crimes punishable by years of jail time. This February in London police forced climate protest organizers to hire private security for marshaling a rally, making protesting not a free public right but an expensive private service.

h/t EFerrari

[arcane1]

1. Not good n/t

[Exilednight]

2. Sadly, this is one of the few things we were first in with

Free speech zones.

[Fumesucker]

9. Sadly "free speech zones" were originally a liberal idea in response to anti-abortion protests

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. I hate to say it, but I expect that here

SOON

[LuvNewcastle]

11. Me too.

It wouldn't take much, really. I think they would get away with it, too.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Well, good way to create anarchy.

This is demonstrating the impact of the Global reach of Oligarchy.

[jwirr]

16. Anarchy is right. This kind of action creates underground responses.

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. I am starting to believe V for Vendetta is a documentary. n/t

[jwirr]

18. Pretty close.

[woo me with science]

5. K&R

[tblue37]

6. The English kettle protesters, and so do cops here. US Police also premptively raid groups of

people who the cops think are planning to protest. The abuse of the OWS protesters and pretty much every other protesting group in this country all through our history demonstrates that the freedom of assembly and to petition part of the First Amendment really is considered by those in power to be, in W's words, just a piece of paper.

[F4lconF16]

7. They're running scared. Let's keep it up, and keep it radical.

Take over the streets:

I’ll begin with the more general topic of class struggle over the use of outdoor space. This is a very consequential issue for workers and the poor. The outdoors is important to workers

— for work
— for leisure and entertainment
— for living space, if you don’t have a home
… and for politics.

First, about work. While successful merchants could control indoor spaces, those without so many means had to set themselves up as vendors on the street. The established merchants saw them as competitors and got the police to remove them.

Street vendors are also effective purveyors of stolen goods because they’re mobile and anonymous. It wasn’t just pickpockets and burglars who made use of street vendors this way. The servants and slaves of the middle class also stole from their masters and passed the goods on to the local vendors. (By the way, New York City had slavery until 1827.) The leakage of wealth out of the city’s comfortable homes is another reason that the middle class demanded action against street vendors.

The street was also simply where workers would spend their free time—because their homes were not comfortable. The street was a place where they could get friendship and free entertainment, and, depending on the place and time, they might engage in dissident religion or politics. British Marxist historian EP Thompson summed all this up when he wrote that 19th century English police were impartial, attempting to sweep off the streets with an equable hand street traders, beggars, prostitutes, street-entertainers, pickets, children playing football and freethinking and socialist speakers alike. The pretext very often was that a complaint of interruption of trade had been received from a shopkeeper.

On both sides of the Atlantic, most arrests were related to victimless crimes, or crimes against the public order. Another Marxist historian Sidney Harring noted: “The criminologist’s definition of ‘public order crimes’ comes perilously close to the historian’s description of ‘working-class leisure-time activity.’”

Outdoor life was—and is—especially important to working-class politics. Established politicians and corporate managers can meet indoors and make decisions that have big consequences because these people are in command of bureaucracies and workforces. But when working people meet and make decisions about how to change things, it usually doesn’t count for much unless they can gather some supporters out on the street, whether it’s for a strike or a demonstration. The street is the proving ground for much of working-class politics, and the ruling class is fully aware of that. That’s why they put the police on the street as a counter-force whenever the working class shows its strength.

http://socialistworker.org/blog/critical-reading/2014/12/09/main-role-police-protecting-ca

[DonCoquixote]

8. there is a deep flaw within this idea

It may sound nice to have the "people" replace police, but laws are also what keeps issues from beign serttled by mob justice. Simply put, abolish the police, and what stops outfits like the Klan from forming their own "courts' as they indeed did?

[F4lconF16]

10. This is part of a much bigger issue

That I hope to post an OP on at some point. I will let you know if I do.

For now, I'm happy with demilitarizing and shrinking police forces and rediverting their funds towards community problems.

This post might interest you. It's long, but I will be rewriting it anyways: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026584017

[DonCoquixote]

12. I did read that one

part of my problem with anarchy is because I see in Dixie where the idea of anarachy became a license for thuggery, and by that I mean by bigots and those who manipulate said bigots.

[F4lconF16]

13. I'm not advocating for anarchy

Though it's quite an interesting discussion. Plus I'd need to brush up on my anarchist theory before having it.

What you are referencing as an alternative is community patrols, and those don't always work for the reasons you've stated. There are more options than that, however.

A short article mentioning a few:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/policing-is-a-dirty-job-but-nobodys-gotta-do-it-6-ideas-for-a-cop-free-world-20141216

Another good short article:

http://www.mcgilldaily.com/PoliceIssue/Restorative-Justice.html

One of my favorite sites for all of this is Rose City Copwatch. They're a fantastic source of information on alternatives to police, and I highly recommend reading their main .pdf as well as the other articles and discussions on their site.

https://rosecitycopwatch.wordpress.com/alternatives-to-police/

[hifiguy]

14. Everything that is not mandatory is forbidden.

Prison planet, indeed.

[jwirr]

15. I disagree with them but I am not surprised. The world is falling apart and is only going to get

worse with global climate change and other crisis coming. Sooner or later the people are going to revolt and communities are getting ready for it. Control is the name of the game.

If we could look behind the curtain I am sure we would see the rich, the corporations, some churches and even most government officials including the police. They are the ones who are afraid of the blowback and the ones who are failing to do anything about the problems. They know they are going to be the target.

Their choice for an answer is fascism. We the people cannot let this happen.

[ananda]

19. This is creepy.

But how long can you hold an angry mistreated mob in place.

[treestar]

20. "Ending Freedom of Assembly" exaggerates

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/29/us-spain-security-idUSBRE9AS0MX20131129

The bill, approved by the cabinet on Friday and now heading to parliament, would apply the maximum fine to unauthorized protest that turns violent inside or outside Spain's upper or lower houses.

Among other measures, protesters who cover their faces at demonstrations could be fined up to 30,000 euros while "offensive" slogans against Spain or its regions could reap a similar sanction.

The new measures also include fines of up to 30,000 euros for drinking alcohol in public spaces and causing a disturbance, a measure certain to irritate the young drinkers who congregate in squares across Spain at weekends.