In this chapter, you will learn what protections the law gives you as an activist. We discuss the legal right to protest. We also talk about how this right is protected in practice, by looking at common police practices.

Chapter quality: ⭐️⭐️ (2/5)

Local contexts #

The right to protest is different in every country. We have written guides that describe all these different local contexts:

• 🌐 International

• 🇦🇺 Australia

• 🇬🇷 Greece

• 🇳🇱 Netherlands (written in Dutch)

• 🇷🇺 Russia (written in Russian & English)

• 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Schotland

• 🇷🇸 Serbia

• 🇿🇦 South Africa

• 🇬🇧 United Kingdom

• 🇺🇸 United States (written in English and Spanish)

• 🇪🇬 Egypt ( written in Arabic)

• Add your country!

Legal support roles #

• ❤️ Arrestee support team

• 🏡 Legal back office (no guide yet)

• 👀 Legal observer (no guide yet)

Case studies #

This section has not been written yet. What legal aspects have there been to groups and their actions, especially in the case of civil disobedience? What fines or custodial sentences have been given to activists in different countries? What new laws threaten us as activists in different parts of the world?

How does State oppression affect activist groups in different countries? What can we learn from this?

External resources #

What is this thing called Activist Legal Support? by Melbourne Activist Legal Support

Staying Safe: Protective Strategies for Activists by Melbourne Activist Legal Support

Understanding and Responding to Repression: Lessons from Peace Brigade International by Anthony Kelly

Backfire Manual: Tactics Against Injustice by Brian Martin

Lessons for Resisting Police Violence and Building a Racial Justice Movement by Waging Nonviolence

Resources about Police Violence and Racial Justice by Commons Librarian

Improve this page #

You can make this page about the right to protest better. Ways in which this chapter can be improved:

• Add a section on your country

• Create page about police violence

• Add guide for police liaisons

• Write article about intelligence services and surveillance (e.g. adding collecting resources such as these)

Search keywords #

By analysing what people are looking up on Google about the legal rights of activists, we understand better what kind of articles to write. People are looking up information about the following topics:

Attribution #

Parts of this chapter are an adaptation of the Wikipedia article on the rights to protest.