• perestroika@slrpnk.net
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    1 year ago

    Authoritarian tactics to suppress protest typically intend to have a chain of effects like this:

    • protest will decrease
    • those who protest will protect themselves better, legally (in terms of planning and considering how to avoid charges)
    • those who protest will protect themselves better, physically (in terms of not being detained and overcoming the police)
    • in the second scenario, police will then be able to depict the protests as “violent” and call it an “insurrection”
    • consequently, they can press heavier charges against anyone they do manage to detain
    • organizing a protest becomes dangerous
    • participating in a protest will be perceived as dangerous
    • people with families and a job and elderly people will fear to participate
    • protest will lose effect due to few participants
    • that will prompt some individuals to anonymous protest and actual sabotage
    • nobody should want that, yet that’s where the path leads to

    The solutions?

    • fixing the problematic laws via political process, adding a freedom-of-protest agenda to other goals
    • disputing the problematic laws where the legal system allows (appealing to constitutions, conventions and charters)
    • bypassing the laws after analysis, protesting in ways that cannot be criminalized
    • in rare cases where it’s worthwhile and there is exceptional mass support, just ignoring the laws, because if there’s a million people blocking streets for some reason, cops are powerless

    All of that won’t be doable in every country, and in some countries, something else might be doable instead.