You know things are bleak in Britain when Russia starts trying to lecture us on human rights. “Disruptive protests are unacceptable, but police must act proportionately,” the Russian embassy tweeted on Sunday, after the Metropolitan police raided an Extinction Rebellion warehouse and arrested 10 activists. “‘Preventive arrests’ raise concern and need to be scrutinised against human rights standards.”
The Met says the people it apprehended were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause public nuisance, but if all they were doing was planning to take part in a peaceful climate protest, then what happened at the weekend isn’t just concerning – it is alarming.
The worrying escalation of pre-emptive police action against protesters is part of a global trend. In Hong Kong, the government used broad colonial-era powers to ban protesters from wearing face masks. More than half of US states have passed laws that punish companies or individuals who boycott Israel; according to Human Rights Watch, 78% of Americans live in these states. In Australia, there has been a spike in laws clamping down on protest. In Guinea, dissent has been silenced completely: street protests have in effect been banned for more than a year, with authorities citing threats to public security.
I could go on. All over the world, the right to engage in non-violent protest is under attack – and not only legally, but from anti-democratic rhetoric. Peter Dutton, Australia’s home affairs minister, said last week that protesters who disrupt traffic should be imprisoned and have welfare payments withdrawn. Dutton, who seems to think he is a feudal lord living in 1419, rather than an elected official operating in 2019, also reckons protestors should be publicly shamed.
Germany also seems keen to suppress democratic protest via public shaming. In May, the Bundestag declared that the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel was antisemitic. An open letter criticising this, signed by 60 Jewish and Israeli academics, noted: “The equation of BDS with antisemitism has been promoted by Israel’s most rightwing government in history [and] is part of persistent efforts to delegitimise any discourse about Palestinian rights.”
Back in Britain, the Telegraph published an editorial on Sunday headlined: “The right to protest does not extend to acting like a terrorist.” While the piece stopped short of labelling Extinction Rebellion a terrorist organisation, the headline seemed to imply as much. “We have democratic processes,” the article huffed. “They should be followed, rather than disrupting the lives of millions.” As if thousands of peoples protesting the destruction of the climate is not the very essence of a democratic process.
When you live in a country such as Britain, it is easy to take your civil liberties for granted. It is easy to think that we will never turn into Guinea or Saudi Arabia. It is easy to laugh off a mainstream newspaper implying activists are terrorists, or shrug off the arrests of would-be protesters. But these erosions of free speech and free assembly add up. Our right to rebellion is precious and precarious; if not protected, it will soon become extinct.
•Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
