If we look at the 10 largest countries in the world, we see a very different picture. Respect for the right to peaceful protest is the exception rather than the rule. These creative ways of protesting for fundamental freedoms demonstrate much-needed resilience. In Poland, in April 2020, women demonstrated in a physically distanced queue outside a supermarket to show their disapproval of proposed restrictive changes to the country`s abortion laws. In October 2020, when these proposals were confirmed in a ruling by the Polish Constitutional Court, protesters showed their support for women`s sexual and reproductive rights by displaying the flash symbol of the Polish women`s strike on their cars. Health workers in Spain have staged several physically distance protests against labour rights in the midst of the pandemic. At one protest, they held up signs with messages such as « Who cares about the people who care about you? » Yahoo News reports that activists face up to five years in prison for participating in protests against the « Chinese-backed copper mining company in Myanmar. » According to article 18 of the Myanmar Penal Code, a sentence of one year`s imprisonment is provided for protesting without authorization. However, the protest is not necessarily violent or poses a threat to national security or public safety interests. Nor is it necessarily civil disobedience if protesting does not mean violating the laws of the state. Protests, even non-violent or civil resistance campaigns, can often have the character (in addition to the use of non-violent methods) of positively supporting a democratic and constitutional order. This can happen, for example, if such resistance occurs in response to a military coup; [4] or, in a somewhat similar case, a refusal by the state leadership to relinquish office after an electoral defeat. After the murder of black American George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020, Black Lives Matter protests also took place in several European countries, including Belgium, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom, with some protests facing repression. In Berlin, dozens of protesters were arrested as 15,000 people gathered to protest police brutality.
Similarly, French police used tear gas and excessive violence during a feminist march on the occasion of International Women`s Day. In reality, most of these countries have repressive regimes rather than model democracies. At the same time, civil society intensified its response and resisted, often intervening when governments went beyond what was necessary and proportionate to address the public health crisis. But as many countries go through new waves of the pandemic, the post-pandemic world will bring uncertainties as civil society strives to remain resilient. And the United States is doing little better. In Baltimore, many of those who protested Freddie Gray`s death were held without charge for more than 48 hours. Cells designed for one or two people were filled with dozens of people and prisoners were not allowed to make phone calls, blankets, pillows or any contact with lawyers or anyone from the outside world. In 2012, H.R. 347 protests near government buildings, political congresses or world summits – except in heavily guarded and fenced « free speech zones » – to a federal crime.
After the decline of the Black Lives Matter movement in New York City, Police Commissioner William Bratton called for a new force of 1,000 police officers, armed with machine guns, to monitor the protests and tried to turn opposition to the arrest into a crime. In its latest report, the CIVICUS Monitor – an online tool that tracks civil society space around the world – shows that the governments of EU, Norway and the United Kingdom (UK) states have subtly restricted civil liberties, often under the guise of fighting the pandemic. Specifically, the right to peaceful assembly has been attacked. Not surprisingly, authoritarian and far-right governments in countries like Hungary, Poland and Slovenia have capitalized on the pandemic, albeit in different ways – motivated by different political motives and local political contexts. But even countries where people have generally been able to exercise their civil liberties without major obstacles, such as Sweden, have crossed borders. While the recent protests in Baltimore have escalated into violence, sanctions have also escalated.