Protest and the Pandemic

During the pandemic, the British government passed the Coronavirus Act 2020 and the Health Protection (Coronavirus) Regulations, both of which restricted the right of assembly and therefore the right to protest. In enforcing these restrictions, the police were granted new powers to disperse gatherings, direct individuals to return home, use reasonable force in removing an individual from a public place, issue fines, and arrest where they deemed it ‘necessary to maintain public health and public order‘. The Act is due to expire in March 2022, and its continuation is subject to a parliamentary vote every six months. The right to protest was not entirely suspended however, as it is considered a human right under Article 11 of the European Convention, and the police have an obligation to protect peaceful protest. On March 15th 2021,, however, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill passed its second reading in the house of commons by a majority of 359 votes to 263. This bill intends to permanently alter the circumstances under which public protest can be conducted. It substantially enhances both police and government powers to control demonstrations, granting police the power to impose severe restrictions on protests if they suspect they “may result in serious disruption to the activities of an organisation” or could cause “serious unease, alarm or distress” to a passer-by. Additionally the act enables prosecution in cases of, ‘intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance’, including ‘producing excessive noise or smells, or offensive or dangerous behaviour in public‘. Fines of up £2,500 can be imposed for failure to comply and those found guilty of damaging a public memorial could face up to ten years in prison. The act will also grant the Home Secretary the power to change the legal meaning of the term “serious disruption” by statutory instrument – effectively sidestepping parliament. Globally, the pandemic brought to a sudden halt the wave of protests in Latin America, Iraq and Algeria among many others, and authoritarian states such as Hungary, Egypt and Guinea have used the crisis to further restrict public expression of opposition. Protests against government actions have, however, taken place under covid-19, in Mexico, Iran and Tunisia and the Black Lives Matters movement inspired protests against racism across the globe. In Britain, the reading of the new bill coincided with heavy-handed police actions against those protesting violence against women at a vigil held in memory of the murdered victim of male violence, Sarah Everard, provoking public outrage. How has the pandemic affected the right to protest? To what degree has the pandemic been used to fundamentally undermine the right to protest in both democratic and authoritarian states? Under what circumstances can it be considered legitimate to limit the right to protest? Are there limitations to the actions that constitute legitimate protest, and if so what are they? What are the long term effects of the pandemic on the staging of public protest and the right to protest?

On March 18th 2021 The Pandemic Perspectives group debated these questions, guided by guidance on existing British legislation and the terms of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill; Guardian articles on restrictions imposed in response to the Black Lives Matter protests in November 2020, fears that the police are ‘using Covid lockdown rules to halt any protests’, and responses to the new bill (both from March 2021); BBC reports on anti-lockdown protests in Birmingham, the trial of those accused of damaging the statute of slave-dealer Edward Coulson in Bristol and the reaction of the West Midland’s Chief Constable to the legislation. Commentary on the implications was provided by Politics.co.uk, ‘Anti-Protest Bill: Freedom Dies in Silence‘. On a European scale, Civic Space Watch’s concern that ‘European’s Right to Protest under Threat’ and on a global scale from Foreign Policy, ‘How the Coronavirus is Silencing Dissent and Sparking Repression‘. The wider questions of the right to protest and the limits of legitimacy were provided by Simon Caney’s article in the journal Social Philosophy and Politics Vol.32 (1) 2015, Responding to Global Injustice: On the Right of Resistance ; Guy Aitchison’s Perspectives on Politics piece ‘Domination and Disobedience: Protest, Coercion and the Limits to an Appeal to Justice‘, and Kimberley Brownlee’s book, Conscience and Conviction: The Case for Civil Disobedience.

The debate began by discussing the specifically British context of state control of protest under Coronavirus restrictions and the implications of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Whilst acceptance of temporary measures to control assembly during the pandemic was broadly accepted as warranted by the group, a sense of deep-felt anxiety and outrage at the terms of the new bill was expressed with near universality. Ronan Love expressed his surprise at the extent of the pre-existing powers to control protest (under the Public Order Act 1986), noting the obligations of organisers to inform the police six days in advance of the date and time of any protest, the numbers expected and the proposed route, and the police’s powers to amend, restrict or prohibit any such plans if they were deemed to be disruptive. He noted with alarm the scope of the new powers proposed, the vagueness of the language used, and the way in which the badly-worded act appeared to give the police and the home secretary almost unlimited powers to prevent any form of protest. As permanent legislation rather than an emergency provision, he felt that its design was evidence of the Conservative government capitalising on the pandemic to impose draconian powers of social control. Liam Knight concurred, noting that the ‘disruption’ potentially banned under the new act, was the very purpose of public protest, and that prohibitions on ‘excessive noise’ cut to the very heart of demonstrations which he saw as carnivals of noise and spectacle embodying the ‘wildness’ inherent in the passionate expression of views. He felt strongly that it represented an assault on basic freedoms. Hanan Fara too was aghast at the scope of the act to curtail free expression, noting that the language employed to describe ‘threats to public order’ was so vague and open to subjective interpretation that it effectively enabled the banning of all forms of public protest that met with the state’s disapproval. She noted the vital importance of public protest, citing the events of the Arab spring in (at least temporarily) overthrowing oppressive regimes, and the necessity of spontaneous acts of protest such as those following the death of Muhamud Hassan in policy custody in Cardiff in January 2021. She argued that such actions were a necessary component of freedom and acted as a form of catharsis needed to express outrage at injustice, noting that under the new bill these protests would be subject to criminal prosecution. Gah-Kai Leung stated that he too had deep concerns over the proposed legislation, describing it as having ‘a chilling effect’, represented a clear curtailment of free speech, and potentially opened the door to more the development of even more stringent restrictions further down the line. Carmen Torres, speaking from New York, noted that the strong constitutionalism of the US and the embedding of freedom of speech in the Bill of Rights meant that no similar constraints on protest had been enacted in US legislation.

David Christie raised the question of the legitimacy of certain aspects of protest/civil disobedience in democratic societies. He noted the liberal republican argument that whilst protest and civil disobedience that appealed to a ‘sense of justice’ and whose purpose was to warn or admonish but didn’t threaten (from Rawls) were clearly legitimate, from a liberal perspective ‘coercive’ or ‘disruptive’ acts risked replacing the verdict of the majority (as expressed through democratic mandate) with that of a loud and assertive minority. He noted that whilst acts of civil disobedience and protest that seemed progressive were easily welcomed, the same freedom would have to afforded to the actions of vocal unrepresentative minorities with reprehensible views. He asked the group’s views on anti-lockdown protests under covid, and what the group’s reaction would be if the disruptive tactics employed by Extinction Rebellion were to be employed by racist organisations. Ronan Love responded by noting Beatrice Evelyn Hall’s comment that “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”, was fundamental to liberty, but noted that the ability to have a public opinion was a function of power. He argued that there was no true ‘free market of ideas’ in democracies and that some groups, such as lobbyists, big business and the wealthy and connected had undue access to power, and other groups were excluded from having a voice. He noted the irony of much of the use of the concept of ‘cancel culture’ now being espoused by the right-wing, whose access to power remained untrammelled. Hanan Fara echoed Love’s views, noting that groups such as the young, members of ethnic minorities and women had long been denied a voice and that disruptive protest was often the only ways such voices stood any chance of being heard at all. Sadegh Attari saw a more sinister edge to the suppression of minority views (benign or malevolent), noting that they tend to become more radical after constant suppression, suggesting it might be a tactic to phase out a particular viewpoint by first suppressing it and then (once it’s radically subversive) bring it into the open to eradicate it altogether.

The debate moved on to the efficacy of protest with Liam Knight noting that marches and demonstrations were perhaps an outdated form of protest, and often achieved very little or nothing at all. He suggested that this form of protesting was parochial in a globalised world and that technology allowed online protesting a much more powerful reach. Christie was unconvinced, whilst acknowledging that he had been on plenty of marches that had achieved nothing, he had also been at the Poll Tax protest which did. He also argued that the very thing the proposed legislation sought to quash, the protest as spectacle, did have lasting impact, and that the time of the pandemic would be partly remembered by the toppling of Coulson’s statue in Bristol, and the heavy-handed policing of the Sarah Everard vigil. He suggested that these events had brought important issues into public prominence in a way that no other form could, and were an effective means of shifting commonly held beliefs, perhaps leading to a Gramscian ‘hegemonic shift’. Knight was less sure, noting as an example, that student walkouts and noisy protest had had little effect on universities, but a collective rent strike had been much more effective in forcing universities to take action. Christie was unconvinced, noting that his membership of the Baby Milk Action Group in the 1980s (protesting against the marketing of milk powder to mothers in the developing world by Nestle) had largely consisted of him not eating Kit-Kats for a decade and was unlikely to have achieved anything at all. Alastair Gardner, argued that such protests did little to challenge hegemonic values, as the frame of reference employed was that of the individual as consumer, and in the case of university protest did not engage in the necessary challenge to the conception of universities as businesses not providers of a public service. Attari was more sympathetic to Knight’s argument noting that boycotts, denial of service attacks and other forms of online disruption could be conducted anonymously, were therefore harder to control and were potentially more terrifying for the controlling authority.

The group concluded by expressing collective concern that the pandemic had indeed enabled authoritarian states to entrench their power and control, and that the actions of the UK government in proposing the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill, risked a massive increase in the state’s coercive power, undermined the human right of freedom of assembly and protest and must be strongly resisted.

There was much more… join Pandemic Perspectives to have your say or set up your own group…