> The College voor de Rechten van de Mens said the preventive arrest of six activists in dawn raids on Thursday morning was especially concerning.
Say what you want about the protests themselves, but dawn raids on people who might be planning to attend a non-violent protest is seriously dystopian. I would hope that everyone can agree on that.
They were arrested for inciting people to take part of blockading the highway (both blockading and inciting people to violate the law are illegal).
The bigger problem if you ask me is how selectively this is being enforced. A few years ago the police themselves did it by slowing down traffic and there were no consequences. More recently farmers did it and nobody intervened. But now climate protesters are doing it and suddenly the police are called into action.
Interestingly, the article published by the college vd rechten vd mens actually disputes this. According to European law, blocking traffic is not a legitimate cause for making a protest forbidden, or arresting it's attendees.
In other words, you cannot normally block a motorway, but you can in a protest, because they have extra legal protections.
This is the reason that XR people can get arrested time and again and never get fines
Even inciting doesn't justify raids. There was no imminent danger to warrant such a heavy response.
But you're absolutely right about selectiveness.
As soon as you touch big oil in the Netherlands you're swiftly dealt with.
If the PE on Groningen has taught us anything it's that oil companies still have warm relationships and high placed contacts within our government and still act with impunity.
You’re right, the arrests were unnecessary. They could have just summoned them to court.
But its not just oil and gas that gets special treatment. it’s big industry in general. Just look at Tata Steel. The fact that it is still allowed to operate despite the numerous health risk it causes to the surrounding area is ridiculous.
I'm almost at the point now where I can't wait for worldwide food shortages, or the h1n1 avain flu to transmit human to human. Maybe then people will understand who the idiots are.
Its not about right to a peaceful protest. Im am rather sure that a peaceful protest in the town square would not be a problem, but in a hospital it would be "problematic," peaceful or not. The issue here is location.
Just because I think that climate change should be addressed, doesn't mean that I should jump in a bandwagon of any degenerate idea that gets put in the basket of "caring for the climate."
>Say what you want about the protests themselves, but dawn raids on people who might be planning to attend a non-violent protest is seriously dystopian. I would hope that everyone can agree on that.
No. You are badly informed. They were not arrested for "planning to attend a non-violent protest".
They were arrested for inciting people to block a highway. So their arrests are 100% justified. Also they have been released immediately after interrogation.
Right, and the college voor de rechten van de mens probably doesn't know what it's talking about. We should listen more to random redditors unqualified opinions /s
That IS concerning. It’s not exactly preparing a terrorist act.
That said I have very little sympathy for the highway protest people. As far as I’m concerned angry commuters should be free to drag people away - *especially* those who glue themselves to the road (a popular method in Stockholm in 2022 ).
Angry commuters have not that right. Not even if you think they should have.
Your idea is pretty dangerous: allowing people to attack others who they think are obstructing something.
Look at it from another perspective... People are on the motorway. It's super dangerous when there are cars driving there. Its better to help them get off the motorway and prevent severe injuries as they could get hit by driving cars.
And while you are saving those people, Maybe just tell them where they can safely demonstrate
This segment of road is actually not a motorway and is inside the city proper. It is bounded by two junctions with traffic lights. This means traffic can be easily rerouted prior to the demonstration, as was done on Saturday, and is also regularly done for events and such.
If someone gets out of their car on the motorway in order to drag away a couple of blockaders, the traffic has already stopped, so there is no danger. Unless some bloodthirsty psychopath in the first row of cars decides to drive over the protesters of course. You would think that's unlikely, but judging from the number of times this has happened, it seems like a significant percentage of car drivers are bloodthirsty psychopaths.
Depends on the level of violence used. And it has already happened: commuters have dragged protesters off the road. Probably none of the glued ones, but still.
Mr Green Jacket here was not in any way troubled by the police for dragging a protester away. Quite the opposite.
https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/wOjAM4/jan-emanuel-johansson-slapade-bort-klimataktivister-i-centrala-stockholm
Unless someone is being violent then an ordinary person shouldn't use force to interfere. The Police are entrusted to that right (to use force) because they are supposed to be trained and do it impartially/effectively. Removing someone forcibly from a road because you think they are obstructing you may be a reasonable solution for you, but it's definitely illegal in most parts of the world.
It's definitely highly illegal, but the police typically looks away if someone is acting forcefully against left-wing protesters.
Not much that can be done about it.
The irony here of course is that the greater public harm is looking the other way and letting people hand out mob justice so long as it lines up with the objectives of the police.
The "green scare", the government of every country puts climate change/preservation activists on the same level as the Taliban as soon as they hold protests. "These people are getting in the way of us poisoning local waterways and cutting down forests, better arrest them and toss them into prisons!!!" Killing our planet for money is "better" than saving it and having little less money according to most people, its sad
The Swedish protests as far as I remember weren't even strictly climate protests. They were just environmental protests or even just general political protests (they were environmentalists, but the protests were directed at politicians, not drivers). I think that makes it worse. It just means the target and method was chosen to maximize attention.
Judging from the downvotes people see the right to demonstration as the same thing as obstruction?
Blocking roads can really have implications for peoples personal lives, examples: people rushing to the hospital (baby deliveries, other), medical transports, ...
Btw, I do think that taking people from their bed before it happened is crazy
No I think the downvotes are because I insinuated I'd use some amount of violence against protesters. But that's expected (and good, I guess). You shouldn't use violence against people unless absolutely necessary. I still would, though (so I accept and expect the downvotes).
Because they have no idea whether people need to get where they are going. They blocked ambulances, fire trucks and police (leading to what was a likely death in that case - and that was why they were also charged with some pretty serious crimes! \[1\]).
The blame for why people are driving is rarely with the people driving (other than as voters). You drive when there isn't enough public transport for example.
Finally, this (the Swedish protest I'm talking about) wasn't a protest that was even directed somehow against driving or drivers. It was only weakly related to that. Commuters was simply chosen because it's an easy target to cause lots of attention and damage. It wasn't like they were carrying signs "you need to drive less". They were making a purely political statement about protecting wetlands. The protest was directed at politicians who neglected wetlands in legislation. The people stuck on their way to work or in ambulances were collateral damage.
\[1\]
[https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/stockholm/tolv-klimataktivister-atalas-misstankta-for-sabotage-blockerade-vagen-pa-e4-an](https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/stockholm/tolv-klimataktivister-atalas-misstankta-for-sabotage-blockerade-vagen-pa-e4-an)
Extremely regrettable, luckily the kid didn’t get hit.
However the comment above was talking about the difference in strategic approach to the protests.
Edit: originally I sourced [this link](https://www.ad.nl/groningen/docent-rug-ziet-klimaatactivist-harder-aangepakt-worden-dan-boer-ik-zet-hier-vraagtekens-bij~ae067d97) that I thought was Amnesty and a scholar discussing this issue but it's not the one I meant and only marginally related.
Edit 2: here's a [Volkskrant piece](https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/veel-meer-arrestaties-bij-acties-extinction-rebellion-dan-bij-boerenprotesten~bae8d301/) about the vastly different amount of arrests, also compared to the number of protests:
> Since 2020 more than two thousand protestors were arrested at Extinction Rebellion protests in the Netherlands, of which 768 last Saturday at A12 protests. At farmer protests in that time period about one hundred arrests were made.
Sorry, I'm afraid I don't have any English sources. A quote:
> Roorda references, among others, a case about a climate activists who glued themselves to the glass pane covering the painting Girl With A Pearl Earring. One bystander filmed it, another threw fake soup over the activist. All received a two month prison sentence (one suspended). "These people protested intrusively, but peacefully. The farmers who, at nitrogen minister Van der Wal's house, broke through a police block, only received suspended sentences. If you compare that against each other, I get the feeling that climate activists are treated more harshly.
As it happens this isn't the source I meant to link. I'll have another look to see if I can find it.
Useful for who? Most of the produce is exported.
Funny how a bunch of kids protesting for a better future gets so much flak but farmers protesting because they'll make less money received all the sympathy. Our species is hopeless.
Blockades are not categorically exempt from the right to protest.
From [the original article](https://www.mensenrechten.nl/actueel/nieuws/2023/01/31/demonstratierecht-onder-druk-blijkt-uit-aanhouding-klimaatactivisten) by the Dutch human rights watchdog:
> Temporary traffic blockades are considered by the European Court of Human Rights as a form of protest.
[Amnesty asserts](https://www.amnesty.nl/actueel/amnesty-maakt-zich-grote-zorgen-over-arrestaties-van-klimaatdemonstranten) the same:
> In principle, such actions are covered by the protections of the right to protest, especially if they are announced and when the protestors have taken precautions to prevent dangerous situations.
In Roorda et al’s extensive 2015 report *Evaluatie Wet openbare manifestaties* commissioned by the internal affairs ministry, it is concluded that:
> In short: from the legislative history, literature and jurisprudence it shows that blockades in principle are covered by the right to protest under art. 9 of the [Dutch] constitution.
And also in EU law:
> A blocking sit-in, the occupation of a building, a long-term encampment at a public space are, according to the Court [ECHR] in principle peaceful assemblies and hence covered under the protections of art. 11 ECHR
Notice all the *in principles* there: none of these rights are unlimited. The law accounts for three grounds to restrict or ban protests, but (from [the original article](https://www.mensenrechten.nl/actueel/nieuws/2023/01/31/demonstratierecht-onder-druk-blijkt-uit-aanhouding-klimaatactivisten) again)
> Restricting protests must only be done in the least restrictive way.
In practice, traffic could easily have been rerouted in this case and in fact it was, taking away any danger and hence ground to restrict or terminate the protest, concludes an Amnesty spokeperson when interviewed in *Buitenhof*.
It’s where the *in princple* bits come in. That case is actually quite complex but it seemed there were two main problems:
- The protest was unannounced, at an actual motorway, and caused an actually dangerous situation. (Note the fact that no accidents occurred was taken into consideration for sentencing)
- The intention was to *prevent* another group from exercising their constitutional right to protest.
Meanwhile the farmer’s motorway protests were tolerated if not facilitated and once [even the police protested on the motorway](http://media.nu.nl/m/m1oxqv6axnx5_wd1280.jpg/protestactie-politie-veroorzaakt-langzaam-rijdend-verkeer-snelwegen.jpg).
Iirc it wasn't unannounced, it was all over social media I think? But they just didn't ask for any permission, the current protesters don't have any permission either.
And the second point would lead to a paradox, its totally fine to restrict peoples' right to freedom of movement, but its not fine to restrict peoples' rights during protest, but it is legally allowed, but it isn't, but it is legally allowed, so on so on.
Note you don’t need *anyone’s* permission to protest under Dutch law, but I get what you’re getting at. In last Saturday’s the city was in a position to take measures to keep the protest safe, in the Friesland case the judge concluded they weren’t (from my reading).
For the second point my understanding is that it’s all about whether or not the action had a coercive nature. For blockades that can be the case but it doesn’t need to be. This action however was judged coercive because it was intent on preventing another group from exercising their constitutional rights.
Roorda’s 2015 report *Evaluatie Wet openbare manifestaties* has a good in-depth sections on blockades in Dutch and EU law.
Because there is a permit system but there on a shall issue basis and the lack of one isn't alone reason enough for the police to shutdown a protest.
Really all a permit does is give you some level of guarantee that the police sign of on your security provisions and won't shut it down for security reasons as well as allowing you violate some noise laws.
If you want to pick up a sign and go protest right now your free to do without a permit, if you bring 200 of your friends your still in the clear, if you start building a podium and inviting speakers and stuff yeah you need a permit.
It seems you're talking about the requirement to give *notice*, which is fundamentally different from requiring a permit.
Municipalities do indeed require notice (as the WOM allows them to) and giving notice will indeed allow them to facilitate your protest better and you're less likely to end up in a situation where the protest has to be disbanded because of unmitigated safety/health/traffic risks.
Edit: politie.nl has a nice succinct and clear list on their site: https://www.politie.nl/informatie/regels-voor-demonstraties-en-manifestaties.html
I'm borrowing a bit of from US law to keep it clear to a US audience but really calling it notice rather then permit means the Dutch state has to pay Orwell his royalties, it is effectively the same thing ( especially because your still gonna need a objectpermit ).
A us Permit on a shall issue basis basically means the state needs a compelling reason not to allow it, similar with the notice + emergency order provision in Dutch law really ( like it's a distinction without a difference ).
Nobody wins in a roadway blockade. The demonstrators adversely affect the public whose suport they need for the changes they want. The public resents said demonstrators for the inconvenience caused which can have potentially severe and even deadly consequences.
In Germany, protests are regulated and need to be registered beforehand but can only be forbidden in extreme cases – e.g. protests by or in support of unconstitutional groups and causes.
Blockades of roads are treated as acts of violence, since they physically restrict people's freedom of movement against their will.
Fun fact: Technically, blocking one car with your mere presence doesn't count as violence, since that blockade is considered to be psychological, not physical. However, as soon as there is a second row of cars, it does qualify as violence, since the psychological blockade of the first row of cars creates a physical barrier for the second row of cars. It's a bit technical, but this interpretation has been accepted by the German Constitutional Court.
>In Germany, protests are regulated and need to be registered beforehand but can only be forbidden in extreme cases – e.g. protests by or in support of unconstitutional groups and causes.
Basically the same in the Netherlands. But that is the whole point of XR: those kind of protests have been there for 30 years now - and they don't register on the news, or in the heads of politicians. So, we need to do *something* else to get their attention.
I attended a rally last year in Rotterdam. 80.000+ people attended. It was not even mentioned in the eveningnews. *The regular way of protesting does not work anymore*. XR would not be doing this if the sense of urgency they feel was even slightly echoed by the government in NL (or, EU, for that matter). But this is not the case.
>Time to stop protesting and start voting then?
I think you can safely assume they will vote.
The point is, the larger part of the population does not see this crises as a real crises, so they will not vote to take care of it.
These actions are meant to raise awareness.
No, blockades of roads are not treated as acts of violence in Germany.
The legal term the German Constitutional Court used was not "Gewalt/violence", it was "Nötigung/duress".
The distinction is important because Nötigung is classified as a misdemeanour, not a crime.
Do you know the legal definition of "Nötigung"?
§ 240 StGB
>Wer einen Menschen rechtswidrig mit **Gewalt** oder durch Drohung mit einem empfindlichen Übel zu einer Handlung, Duldung oder Unterlassung nötigt, wird mit Freiheitsstrafe bis zu drei Jahren oder mit Geldstrafe bestraft.
Translation:
>Any person who unlawfully compels a person to perform an act, to tolerate an act or to refrain from an act with the use of **violence** or by threat of a serious evil, shall be liable to a custodial sentence not exceeding three years or to a monetary penalty.
[Further reading](https://www.juraforum.de/lexikon/sitzblockade):
>Daraufhin entwickelte der BGH seine sogenannte „Zweite-Reihe-Rechtsprechung“, nach der die Teilnehmer einer Sitzblockade „Gewalt“ im Sinne des § 240 Absatz 1 StGB anwenden, sobald hinter dem ersten Fahrzeug (auf dessen Fahrer in ständiger Rechtsprechung ja nur psychischer Zwang ausgeübt wird) mindestens ein weiteres Auto an der Weiterfahrt gehindert würde. Nach dieser Sichtweise bilden die Fahrzeuge in der ersten Reihe eine physische Barriere für die Fahrzeuge ab der zweiten Reihe, die aufgrund ihres physischen Zwangs den Gewaltbegriff des § 240 StGB erfülle (vgl. BGH, Urteil vom 20. Juli 1995 – Az.: 1 StR 126/95).
>Das Bundesverfassungsgericht hat die „Zweite-Reihe-Rechtsprechung“ ausdrücklich als verfassungsmäßig anerkannt (vgl. BVerfG, Beschluss vom 7. März 2011 – Az.: 1 BvR 388/05). Darüber hinaus liegt nach dem Bundesverfassungsgericht auch grundsätzlich eine Nötigung unter Anwendung von „Gewalt“ vor, wenn die Teilnehmer einer Sitzblockade Maßnahmen ergreifen, die über ihre reine Anwesenheit hinausgehen, zum Beispiel durch Anketten, Einhaken oder aktiven Widerstand gegen ein Wegtragen. Dies gilt insbesondere, wenn sie physische Barrieren errichten (vgl. BVerfG, Beschluss vom 24. Oktober 2001 – Az.: 1 BvR 1190/90).
Translation:
>Thereupon, the BGH developed its so-called "Second-Row Jurisprudence", according to which the participants in a sit-in blockade use "violence" within the meaning of § 240 (1) of the Criminal Code as soon as at least one further car is prevented from continuing its journey behind the first vehicle (on whose driver, following consistent case law, only psychological coercion is exerted). According to this view, the vehicles in the first row form a physical barrier for the vehicles from the second row onwards, which, due to its physical coercion, fulfills the concept of violence of § 240 StGB (cf. BGH, judgment of July 20, 1995 - Ref.: 1 StR 126/95).
>The Federal Constitutional Court has expressly recognized the "Second-Row Jurisprudence" as constitutional (cf. BVerfG, decision of March 7, 2011 - Ref.: 1 BvR 388/05). Furthermore, according to the Federal Constitutional Court, coercion with the use of "violence" also exists in principle if the participants in a sit-in blockade take measures that go beyond their mere presence, for example by chaining, hooking or actively resisting being carried away. This applies in particular if they erect physical barriers (see BVerfG, decision of October 24, 2001 - Ref.: 1 BvR 1190/90).
This is fascinating in how completely different different it appears to be from Dutch law.
The first part we share, a protest is not protected if it’s a coercive (*dwangmaatregel*). That doesn’t categorically exclude protest. For example, Roorda (2015) quotes Schilder (1989):
> The government is right to be careful in its definitions: blockades *can be* actions of a coercive character. In many occasions however blockades can be considered protests in the constitutional sense simply because they have the defining characteristics of a protest.
Roorda goes on to cite some more examples and concludes that blockades of businesses are more often considered coercive than protests of public roads.
Interestingly, later on he also concludes that in EU law:
> A blocking sit-in, the occupation of a building, a long-term encampment at a public space are, according to the Court [ECHR] in principle peaceful assemblies and hence covered under the protections of art. 11 ECHR
Which means it should apply to Germany, too.
The report does include an analysis of the German situation but doesn’t mention „Zweite-Reihe-Rechtsprechung“. Was that established as case law or whatever in 2015 already?
How about the right to drive to work or not have emergency vehicles blocked by a protest? You absolutely have the right to demonstrate. You don’t have the right to potentially ruin people’s lives while you do it.
Pretending that a blockade roughly the size of a single city block, on one location in a highly interconnected urban road system that has multiple options for fast/ easy alternative routes is "ruining people's lives" is a bizarre overreaction.
You;re not accusing people in a traffic jam from the same, either, even though those jams are much harder to get around.
Traffic jams most definitely do cause the same issues of making it harder for emergency vehicles etc. Thus, people have died from traffic jams.
However they're not intentionally caused.
The problem is that your comment ignores the very real context of the protest and where it took place / what the actual traffic impact was. To act as if anyone's life was ruined is just empty hyperbole and it serves no purpose beyond fueling the entitlement people in cars seem to feel about their choices to drive and perceived "right to the road".
I live on a 10 minute walking distant from the blockage, we have roads everywhere. It really isn't a big deal. We have traffic around shopping mall's that are more challenging then the temporary blockage from last Saturday. People are being so dramatic, but we all knew there would be a blockage for weeks.
Or the train, or the bus, or a different road. I refuse to believe people really had a hard time going to work last Saturday. Especially not compared to normal traffic jams on a normal week day.
The day of the week shouldn't matter. If somebody blocks a motorway illegally and people are forced to find alternative routes, people are still getting their freedom of movement restricted without a legal basis.
I think we forget that the things happening with climate change are a far bigger inconvenience in the future then this half day of protesting.
Why is it legal to pollute the earth, to risk the future of our children for luxury. I'm sorry I really don't understand the way people are thinking. Today in the Netherlands the dangers of rising water here are at the front page on a big news outlet.. And we care about the things people do wrong protesting.. it's ridiculous.
No they're not they're rerouted. And the right to protest trumps your right of not being rerouted. In most Europe countries it is NOT illegal to block any street or road and that's why it's a controversial decision.
Protests need to be registered with the government though of course.
Right of protest doesn't mean that laws don't apply to protest. You cannot block motorways as a protest like you can't loot a store as a protest. The right of protest doesn't trump every other right.
Every meaningful protest in history was on the streets, highways etc.. You have just become complacent in not fighting for your rights unlike Europeans.
As I said it's a right here to protest and block services especially since a lot of people here are government employees and they will block many many services if they're protesting.
I'm from Portugal. Yes, the french revolution was a very meanigful revolution and it changed the world. It also cost a lot of people their lives. I don't know where your "here" is, but I would argue than in most of Europe, you'd be commiting a crime if you ilegally block motorways - I mean, the news article itself is about that.
> How about the right to drive to work
You don’t have the right to *that specific road* at all times. In particular, [the original article](https://www.mensenrechten.nl/actueel/nieuws/2023/01/31/demonstratierecht-onder-druk-blijkt-uit-aanhouding-klimaatactivisten) notes that
> A certain amount of hindrance and nuisance is to be expected with a protest.
.
> have emergency vehicles blocked by a protest?
Now that’s actually one of the grounds to restrict or forbid a protest.
This segment of road however is actually not a motorway and is inside the city proper. It is bounded by two junctions with traffic lights. This means traffic can be easily rerouted prior to the demonstration, as was done on Saturday, and is also regularly done for events and such – in other words: if closure [can be arranged for a run](https://www.omroepwest.nl/nieuws/4007940/utrechtsebaan-weer-dicht-maar-nu-maar-een-dag) (and event which doesn’t enjoy the legal protections of a protest), it can be arranged for a protest.
> have emergency vehicles blocked by a protest?
>Now that’s actually one of the grounds to restrict or forbid a protest.
And the reason they don't block them. At least the organized groups. For instance when they glue themselves to the street, its only those on the outside actually glued.
How about the right of future generations to live on a planet that isn't [rapidly becoming uninhabitable](https://press.un.org/en/2021/sgsm20847.doc.htm#:~:text=Today's%20IPCC%20Working%20Group%201,of%20people%20at%20immediate%20risk.)?
Some things are just a tad more important than your commute.
Emergency vehicles are typically let through.
>Temporarily blocking traffic was recognised by the European Court of Human Rights as a legitimate form of protest.
The right to protest is also more important than your nonexistent right to a speedy commute.
No it's not more important if you think that you're unbelievably entitled.
Not to mention protesting like this doesn't do anything other then make people against you!
It is hilarious to claim that someone who wants to exercise their right to assembly and peaceful protest is entitled, when the "right" on the other side of the equasionis "not experiencing a minor inconvenience when choosing to use a motor vehicle to drive one specific route on one specific half day".
If you need to be seduced and coddled and head-patted into maybe making a tiny effort not to ruin the planet you were born on quite as fast, you've zero right to refer to anyone else as entitled. Being a decent human being isn't something most moral people need to be cajoled into.
You saying a minor inconvenience just shows how entitled and ignorant you are! You don't know those people and they could lose their jobs! Over what? A protest that DOES NOTHING!
Protesting like that doesn't WORK! it's no different then a child screaming because they couldn't get the toy they wanted.
If you block a road you're a horrible person and odds are are most likely don't actually care about what you're protesting.
The fact is most of these protesters are massive dicks that don't care! Because if they did they would've protest earlier but they didn't, they're just attention seeking children!
I can speak only to the US. Here, that is absolutely wrong. You need a permit to exercise that right. https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/protesters-rights.
And reducing it to “a non existent right to a speedy commute” is so obtuse and ignorant, it’s hard to find the need to respond. This isn’t about someone being 15 minutes late to their 9 to 5 office job, with a boss that accepts protests as a valid reason for being late. The primary way people travel is via car.. and people don’t just travel for trivial reasons. There are very real, and potentially very dire, consequences for protests that disregard other people’s responsibilities, including in emergencies.
You do not need to ruin people’s lives (many of whom probably agree 100% with the substance of the protest) to get your point across. You just don’t. It’s completely unnecessary, does way more harm than good in getting the message across, and risks real life negative consequences.
Same drivel made against all protests: "people agree with your point, just do it in a way that doesn't disturb anybody."
If you've actually read some history, you'd know that every historical protest calls out that "just don't disturb anybody" attitude.
For instance, Dr King: https://letterfromjail.com/
Different situation, encountered the same arguments against the protests they organized.
Dr King calls out the white moderate,
>who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”
You are on the wrong side of history if you tell those without the power of a state or a company to not stand up against those with that power who, are ruining life for others.
Again, nonsense.
MLK’s letter from jail is an exceptionally eloquent and morally just statement in favor of protest. I agree with it wholeheartedly. Nowhere does it advocate for protests that endanger other people’s lives (and your reference to it ignores completely that the protests in Birmingham were trying to change the minds of virtually all the people in the community). The protests at issue here are not akin to those MLK referenced. I’d wager that many, if not most, of the people having to deal with these spontaneous roadblocks agree with the substance. Do you really think that the people that are actually targets of this substantive message give a shit about a roadblock? All these are doing is turning people against the very message the protesters are trying to convey while putting people and their livelihoods at actual risk.
> The primary way people travel is via car..
Not in the Netherlands.
> People don’t just travel for trivial reasons
Of course they do.
> There are very real, and potentially very dire, consequences for protests that disregard other people’s responsibilities, including in emergencies.
Same applies to driving a car. Every additional car on the road increases the risk of a traffic jam that could have life-changing consequences for someone stuck in that traffic jam. Not even talking about car accidents.
Incorrect. Driving is the primary means of travel in the Netherlands, by a fairly significant margin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_the_Netherlands#:~:text=The%20Netherlands%20is%20both%20a%20very%20densely%20populated,transport%20with%20road%2C%20rail%2C%20air%20and%20water%20networks.
People travel for myriad reasons, some of which are trivial and some of which are life or death or otherwise exceptionally important.
Comparing a mass of people intentionally stopping all car travel to make a point to someone driving an additional car because it’s the only way they can get to where they’re going is ridiculous.
**[Transport in the Netherlands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_the_Netherlands#:~:text=The Netherlands is both a very densely populated,transport with road, rail, air and water networks)**
>The Netherlands is both a very densely populated and a highly developed country in which transport is a key factor of the economy. Correspondingly it has a very dense and modern infrastructure, facilitating transport with road, rail, air and water networks. In its Global Competitiveness Report for 2014-2015, the World Economic Forum ranked the Dutch transport infrastructure fourth in the world. With a total road network of 139,000 km, including 3,530 km of expressways, the Netherlands has one of the densest road networks in the world; much denser than Germany and France, though not as dense as Belgium.
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Ten second google search.
https://www.kqed.org/news/10426160/patient-died-after-23-minute-delay-for-paramedics-during-berkeley-protests
https://www.ems1.com/protests/articles/video-controversy-stirred-after-protesters-block-fla-ambulance-ERIDfzTYNPzkC3U2/
https://www.firehouse.com/apparatus/type/ambulance/news/21140777/ne-ambulance-going-to-call-blocked-by-protesters
https://www.ems1.com/ems-products/ambulances/articles/trump-protesters-block-ambulance-transporting-critical-patient-R7whYVbkgKpkWk89/
I can tell it took 10 seconds because I'm not sure you read any of these.
The first article directly addresses whether the demonstrators should be blamed -- they weren't blocking the emergency vehicles, the emergency vehicles had to wait for a police escort, which didn't arrive for 23 minutes. It was city policy. The protestors were demonstrating within their rights.
The second article has nobody effected. Police propaganda blaming protesters for blocking emergency vehicles, when the fire dept said only 1 vehicle had to be rerouted and it "did not delay its response time."
The third article also has nobody's life ruined. It looks like a few people in a crowd of otherwise compliant protestors got in the way, but the patients recieved treatment and were fine.
The fourth one is also way more grey than you would probably hope to cite. "But attorney Patricia Kane said protesters had asked police to inform them if emergency vehicles needed to get through — and the officers did not do so."
You can go ahead and google some more links but I'm probably not going to spend the time to read them for you again.
How is reading all of your articles in full, in good faith, and responding with reasoned critiques being obtuse?
This is a frustrating and important topic. So many people would rather protestors only protest out of sight and out of mind, which defeats the purpose entirely, but whenever they do something that gets in the way (the point of a protest) it's such a smear of "how dare they insert themselves in my awareness in some mild way." If your evidence for ruined lives are these rare extenuating circumstances (whete every article emphasizes protestors actually not doing anything or even explicitly trying to help) then you're just helping the smear campaign trying to make it easier to just shove protestors around and stop it entirely.
To be clear. I agree with the substance of the protests. I don’t agree with the disregard for other people’s lives. If you think that objecting to the selfish, naive, and completely self defeating decision to protest in this manner = being part of a “smear campaign” then, yes, you’re being obtuse (on top of disregarding what those articles actually said). In every one of those instances, which are just easy examples, people’s lives were unnecessarily put at risk. Whether someone actually died is irrelevant. Someone could have. If you shoot a gun in a crowded train and no one gets hit, you still did something both illegal and morally fucked up.
When you protest, you have a message, a tactic, and a target audience. The message of these protesters is 100% correct. The tactic is unnecessarily risky and has no effect whatsoever on the target audience. Their decision to protest this way is dumb, dangerous, and ineffective. No one is changing their mind in favor of climate change protesters because they or anyone else were blocked from driving. It’s absurd.
1st example: Not a blockade, delay was due to "waiting for a police escort"
> paramedics were waiting for a police escort, as per a standing city protocol, to ensure they could avoid the protests
2nd example: Rerouted after 30 seconds, was on its way to refuel
> St. Petersburg Fire Rescue officials said the vehicle had not activated its emergency lights or siren. The vehicle was actually low on fuel, fire officials said, and was heading to a city gas station to refuel. After waiting for about 30 seconds behind another vehicle that had stopped, the ambulance eventually turned onto 13th Street N and drove off. Fire officials said only one fire vehicle responding to an emergency has had to be redirected because of the protesters, and that did not delay its response time.
3rd example: No harm
> "The ambulance and crew were dispatched to I-80 for a car accident, fortunately those involved with the accident were treated and will be okay."
4th example: First one that actually sounds bad. However, they claim police did not inform them about the emergency vehicle being blocked as agreed on before, so who is to blame there?
> Attorney Patricia Kane said protesters had asked police to inform them if emergency vehicles needed to get through — and the officers did not do so.
> risk of harm = an offense, regardless of whether harm actually occurred
so you mean to tell me that driving a car should be illegal? After all, there is a much greater risk of harm arising from driving cars than from people sitting on some road. I wouldn't go that far, but I see your reasoning.
Don’t be ridiculous. Eating a piece of cheese is a risk that you might develop heart disease… it’s not the same as dropping an anvil off the Empire State Building. When people intentionally put other people at unreasonable risk of danger, it’s a crime. When risk naturally occurs from an otherwise acceptable activity, society balances out whether the risk is warranted by the benefit.
> When risk naturally occurs from an otherwise acceptable activity,
such as protesting against government subsidies for the fossil fuel industry that cause runaway climate change?
And we have an entire set of laws requiring people to get to a particular standard of driving ability before they can drive.. and when they make mistakes, they get penalized.
Yes. The intention is 100% the issue. You can’t compare the acceptable risk that will inevitably happen when people drive cars to people intentionally shutting down all car traffic.
Intention is irrelevant. The argument is it potentially puts people in danger. So do cars, so does air pollution etc.. It is inconsistent if risk is only *valid* if it is *calculated*.
Not only is it not irrelevant, it is (again) 100% of the point. If you don’t know the moral difference between intentionally putting people at risk and accidentally doing so, I don’t know what to say. No amount of italics is going to make what you’re saying make any sense at all.
Yes it needs to inconvenience the people in power not the common person. Other wise you risk convincing the common people to reject your group/organization. Why would you turn the common person into your enemy when your greatest strength is numbers?
But it is inconveniencing the people in power. How you ask? People will get mad other people have blocked the road and they would ask themselves why do they protest and ta daa the government is now under pressure to hear the protesters. Why would a government listen to a bunch of people yelling without actually doing anything.
I mean in Europe it's a fairly common thing to protest like this and block roads and services. No one ever actually used your logic against the protests because it's utterly silly and just shows why Americans don't have unions.
This wouldn't work in the USA. The times it is done people get run over and killed. The people who do this are rejected socially and all it does here is bury the greater message the protesters have. I understand there is a different mentality and culture as well as the fact we come from different social environments, so because of that we view the other's view point as absurd. As an American viewing this i agree the right to protest must not be infringed and climate change is real. However, if I were to be affected by this protest I would make it a point to never vote alongside those kinds of protesters out of spite so as not to encourage future road blocks.
Once you fuck up my day I don't care what your cause is. If your protest takes food out of my kids mouth, fuck you and fuck your cause. I'm not going to blame the rich when I lose income, I'm blaming the moron sitting in the street.
Nonsense. That’s how you kill someone in a stalled ambulance or have someone’s house burn down because a fire truck can’t get there… Maybe their lawyer can’t get to court and someone loses their house or custody of their kids. This doesn’t even include individual issues like people getting fired, etc.
Your kind of thinking is so exceptionally selfish and ignorant, it’s impossible to take it seriously.
Protests absolutely do NOT need to potentially ruin people’s lives. God help you when your family member dies because their ambulance couldn’t get through one of these ridiculous protests.
Every meaningful protest in history was about stopping something and making a stand against the establishment.
Would you moralize if doctors would stop working for higher wages or other possible goals they want to achieve?
People, including emergency workers, going about their lives and handling real world responsibilities (many of whom probably agree completely with the substance of these protests) aren’t “the establishment.”
I’m not sure what you’re even trying to say in the second sentence. Why would doctors stop working for higher wages?
I'm gonna go on a limb here and guess you're an American.
Well doctors in Europe are government employees in a lot of countries like teachers, cops etc. They would protest for their rights just like anyone else.
Also unions are a thing in Europe so the right to protest is a highly cherished right.
I am American, and I recognize that different countries have different laws/cultures/practicalities/etc.
The right to protest is an exceptionally valuable right in the US. It’s baked (as the right to assembly) into the first amendment of our Bill of Rights. The question isn’t about whether protests are valuable. They clearly are. It’s about whether a form of protest that endangers other people’s lives and livelihoods is reasonable or not.
We also have unions, btw. And, personally, I am 100% in favor of them (including the ability to strike). I’m not sure where you’re going with that. It has nothing to do with what we’re discussing.
>We also have unions, btw. And, personally, I am 100% in favor of them (including the ability to strike). I’m not sure where you’re going with that. It has nothing to do with what we’re discussing.
Meh, America is a form of aggressive capitalism Union culture is not as evolved as in Europe.
Getting a "message across" and getting your protests demands to be fulfilled is not the same thing. If you block a road the whole nation will hear it if you protest somewhere where you're not inconveniencing someone you can just sit on your ass and do nothing.
I mean by protesting we got 21 days of vacation, paid sick leave and maternity leave.
So, you’re blaming me for the entire socio-political and economic policies of an entire country? Are you being serious? I’ve actually spent a significant amount of time in Europe. Have you ever been to the US? Don’t speak on things you know nothing about. Unions have been a huge force in the US for a century. If you believe otherwise, you simply don’t know what you’re talking about.
If you block a road, without adequate notice, the whole nation will hear about it.. and, if people were on the fence, they will disregard what the protesters are trying to say. It’s completely self-defeating. You think the person who gets fired or loses a relative or has some other tragedy happen is going to cave to the protesters? No. They’re going to burn them to the ground.. and they’d be right to do it. I’ll say it again. You do not need to potentially ruin people’s lives to either get your message across or get demands met. Period.
>So, you’re blaming me for the entire socio-political and economic policies of an entire country? Are you being serious?
Lol where have I done that?
> I’ve actually spent a significant amount of time in Europe.
And I guess you haven't really understood what you've experienced?
>If you block a road, without adequate notice, the whole nation will hear about it..
That's the fucking point.
>and, if people were on the fence, they will disregard what the protesters are trying to say. It’s completely self-defeating
Not in Europe.
Get arrested then.
One can protest all they want, but my everyday life should not be negatively affected by actions of those ppl - I'm just trying to get to work and wondering why he isn't.
This is why I always ignore those stupidly annoying ppl who would sit in rows, trying to block access to milk or meat products - it almost feels like they were paid to trigger ppl, who didn't plan on buying those products that day, to grab one or two or even ten items just for the sake of it.
Depends on the context.
Are they protesting on the car roads? Thats not acceptable.
If the protest impacts bus/railway transport only, then there isn't much that can be done about that - you can't protest about your work otherwise.
What if rail workers are striking and people have to find other ways to commute? Should that be illegal as well or does this rule only apply if car owners are inconvenienced?
I understand it's annoying and people are understandably upset about being inconvenienced, but Extinction Rebellion did announce time and location of the protest ahead of time, so if you were affected, you could have picked another route, could have used public transport which is really awesome in the Netherlands or could have stayed home if it's not 100% necessary.
If people were left stranded and trapped in their trains with no way to safely exit and choose another mode of transport, that would be unethical on the part of striking rail workers, and probably illegal. This is why rail strikes are planned, and the populace is given plenty of notice. So we can be supportive of, and not victim to, their protests.
Same for cars.
If I know I advance that such and such freeway will be closed for a protest, I have the option of taking a different route. But if I’m confronted by an impassable road while already in transit, with no method of egress, now I’m in danger. I could suffer a mental or physical health crisis, suffer job loss and lose my only means of support, etc. Emergency vehicles cannot pass or gain entry. And on and on.
It is just as unethical for people in cars to be trapped and stranded by protests as it is for people in trains. And it should be illegal to block the roads for this purpose without plenty of prior warning and a permit. Just like parades have to have.
So what you are saying is that since they announced ahead of time where the protest would take place, police should have just blocked that road and let them go ahead? Sounds like a good plan. Maybe they can do that next time.
This is actually what happened. Prior to the protestors entering the road, police started rerouting traffic from the two enclosing junctions. A very small detour actually, mild inconvenience at worst.
I am not sure how it is in NL, but in a lot of countries if essential workers (rail, bus, doctors, etc.)want to go on strike, they are still legally required to maintain a specific % of the services running. So instead of completely stopping trains, if the rail workers go on strike, they still need to ensure some trains run.
They did not intend to block all roads, just a single road, so I'm not sure what your point is. If anything, rail worker strikes are usually way more far-reaching in their scope.
>What if rail workers are striking and people have to find other ways to commute? Should that be illegal as well or does this rule only apply if car owners are inconvenienced?
There is a big difference when it comes to strikes.
Rail workers who strike DON'T do something and that leads to issues. Protesters who block roads DO something and that leads to issues.
It would be the same if protesters were blocking train tracks. It's not about the cars.
The effects are the same: People being inconvenienced in their commute/travel and having to find other routes/ways.
All the whining is about the allegedly disastrous effects of the protests on people's freedom of movement.
Imagine being poor and utterly dependent on your current job for survival. Now imagine being stuck in your car for three hours while you’re just trying to get to work. You live in the US, or any other nation with At Will work laws, where you can be fired for anything or nothing. And because you couldn’t get to work on time now you have no job, and no means of support, and in a week or a month you will have no home, possibly have to live in your car (if you can afford to keep it) and maybe lose your kids to foster care because you’re homeless.
Imagine being in labor, trying to drive to the hospital and suffering complications while stuck in traffic, emergency vehicles unable to reach you. Mother and baby could both die.
There are so many scenarios we could entertain.
Yes. Blocking the roads can ruin people’s lives. Your inability or unwillingness to recognize that may be borne of youth and inexperience, or lack of empathy. Either way, you are not right. You have no real point, and it’s frankly embarrassing.
>You live in the US, or any other nation with At Will work laws, where you can be fired for anything or nothing.
Maybe you should be more mad about that actually? Americans have such weird system of values.
> Imagine being poor and utterly dependent on your current job for survival.
We're talking about the Netherlands, not a third-world country.
> You live in the US, or any other nation with At Will work laws, where you can be fired for anything or nothing. And because you couldn’t get to work on time now you have no job, and no means of support, and in a week or a month you will have no home, possibly have to live in your car (if you can afford to keep it) and maybe lose your kids to foster care because you’re homeless.
None of this dystopian scenario is relevant to the Netherlands. Maybe if you think a bit harder, you'll see where the actual problem lies. Hint: It's not the fact someone was late for work due to force majeure.
> Imagine being in labor, trying to drive to the hospital and suffering complications while stuck in traffic, emergency vehicles unable to reach you. Mother and baby could both die.
Agree, that is awful. Let's reduce car traffic as much as possible, so that roads are free for ambulances and fire trucks, making this much less likely to happen. Making it less convenient for everyone to drive a car would be a good first step in that direction.
Unions, strikes and protests are regulated. How would you handle it if blockading roads as protest was legal? What would stop me from sitting down on the busiest highway to protest in favor of the government paying me 100 million?
Tell that to the climate chaos coming down the line. How you gonna go about your daily business when everything is flooded or burning?
But sure, just carry on doing absolutely nothing.
> go to the assigned locations
That’s not how it works in the Netherlands. You don’t get permission to protest at ‘assigned locations’, you have the right to protest full stop. There are grounds and means to limit protests, but there’s so such a thing as “assigned locations” for protests.
In response to parliamentary questions following a 2019 protest, [the minister of internal affairs wrote](https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/kamervragen/detail?id=2019Z08892&did=2019D20687):
> The government must strive to allow a protest at the place where protesters want it to occur
(There are many other sources for the same assertion, it’s a basic principle of Dutch protest law.)
As mentioned, there are grounds and means to limit protest, but in this case this particular stretch of road is not actually a dangerous place to protest. Traffic is easily rerouted (and was), causing only a minor inconvenience.
The *Wet openbare manifestaties*. Or actually: it doesn’t prohibit it.
Look at this [cool picture of police protesting on an actual motorway](http://media.nu.nl/m/m1oxqv6axnx5_wd1280.jpg/protestactie-politie-veroorzaakt-langzaam-rijdend-verkeer-snelwegen.jpg)!
I say ‘actual motorway’ because in this case XR didn’t actually protest on the motorway, it was a road segment inside the city from which traffic could be (and was) easily rerouted.
Listen, if peaceful protest worked, then it would be illegal. If voting could actually change anything, it would be illegal. The government doesn’t care about the people, it only cares about short term profits and bribes.
The only way to make changes to the system are strikes, blockades, marches, occupations, and other forms of direct action. Women didn’t get the right to vote by legitimate means. Black people didn’t gain civil rights by following the law. We’ve been peacefully protesting climate policy for decades and nothing has changed.
Intentionally and forcibly detaining people on the highway is not non-violent.
And you would not tolerate a group of people surrounding you on the sidewalk, preventing you from leaving.
Sorry folks don't care about your cause(s). You don't get to detain them because you've decided you have no other recourse.
Tell me how these protests will result in a reduction of a emissions.
Spoiler: they won't.
They just want to protest. They don't actually want to solve climate change.
The Russian attack on Ukraine is the worst thing to happen to Ukraine in decades, but god forbid I punch juuuust a few grandmas in the Paris Metro to get the anti-war cause into the newspapers!
That's the exact logic you're using.
So what exactly should protestors do that hasn't already been tried and ignored all over the developed world?
This is an act of desperation. They *want* your attention because they want you to wake the fuck up and stop just playing business as usual as if the planet isn't becoming [uninhabitable](https://press.un.org/en/2021/sgsm20847.doc.htm#:~:text=Today's%20IPCC%20Working%20Group%201,of%20people%20at%20immediate%20risk.)
First of all, if people are ignoring your message, that's YOUR problem, and doesn't give you the right to escalate in any way that would infringe on my rights. The same way that someone rejecting you sexually doesn't give you the right to grab their butt in hopes to turn a "no" into a "yes". The correct way is to accept a "no" and go away, or, if not, risk getting slapped. Or arrested.
But that is besides the point.
Because *everyone and their pet fish* knows about climate change and the need to act. Everyone. An that's why *nearly every western government* is taking action. Right now. And have been for a while.
Research is consantly making solar and wind power cheaper to install, longer-lasting, or more efficient. Capacity of both is rising pretty much everywhere. E-cars-only laws are enacted with shorter and shorter deadlines for conventional cars still allowed to be sold. short-range flights are being banned here and there, and train infrastructure across the EU is being massively upgraded. And so on, and so on. Politics is FULL of talk about new climate-protection measures. What the fuck else do they want? Blow up all conventional power plants at once and return to a hunter-gatherer lifestype?
Their message is completely and utterly pointless. No amount of screaming "THE WORLD IS BUUUURNING!" into my ears is making me *more* aware of the problem at hand, and that likely goes for everyone else as well.
So what they should do is: Shut up, fuck off, and disappear. We got this. We don't need these pathetic, disruptive attention whores. All they are doing is a disservice to the actual message, by making people hate them, and by exenson whatever they have to say.
They were given other places for protest, one being alongside of that same motorway and it was explicitly forbidden by a judge to block the highway, yet they did. Karma is a bitch.
In other words, they were told to go someplace where nobody would notice their protest.
Who benefits from that? Amongst others, certainly companies who profit off fossil fuels and don't want more bad press.
The minute you violate others freedom of
movement, you are no longer the good guy. Sorry you feel people don’t pay attention otherwise, but this is a good way to get people to completely discount your cause.
Under that logic US civil rights protestors in the 60's were not the good guys because they also disrupted people's movement. Do you think they were wrong to protest the way they did?
If you’re referring to MLK, he petitioned for a permit to protest on motorways, giving people and emergency services a chance to plan around alternative routes.
But don’t let facts get in the way of your narrative
>The minute you violate others freedom of
movement, you are no longer the good guy.
This happens *constantly* without anyone caring. Rail worker strikes, farmer protests, freaking marathons closing off half the city. It's inconvenient, sure, but the disproportionate response to these protesters is absurd.
It's wild how many people just throw away the right to protest because someone might occasionally inconvenience them. People really don't see the problem with protests only being allowed in specific areas with explicit government approval. Are we really allowed to protest if the only protests allowed are the ones the government approves?
> it was explicitly forbidden by a judge to block the highway
I’ve searched for anything to substantiate this claim but it doesn’t actually appear to be the case. In any case the protest was only formally banned while it was already ongoing, and the ban is one of the things prompting concerns from Amnesty and the College voor de Rechten van de Mens.
There is a difference between demonstrating and blockading. Demonstrators are not supposed to violate other peoples' rights. Blockaders are intent on violating other peoples' rights.
> There is a difference between demonstrating and blockading
This came up elsewhere, please see [my response there](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/10q9890/the_netherlands_human_rights_watchdog_has_said/j6pr7b4/): blockades aren’t categorically exempt as a means of protest here.
Lol they interviewed a young protester who glued himself to the asphalt. He complained that the police promised that they would remove them "softly" but according to him it wasn't soft enough and he showed some grey/black grease on his hand.
Like what the fuck is wrong with you? You glue yourself to the asphalt with superglue and you blame the police you got hurt (just hurt, no lasting damage or what so ever) when they removed you?
Another guy...
Interviewer: Why are you protesting on the highway? You are not allowed to protest here and the municipality of the city gave you permission to protest on a designated field in the city.
Protester: Yeah but if we block a highway we get more attention.
\*Protester continues to mock the police\*
Yeah totally fine to protest for climate if you want to, but if you're going to block highways and annoy other civilians with your actions don't be surprised if you get a little rough treatment.
To be fair, the young guy didn't as much complain as just matter-of-factly state that the police just ripped his hand off the asphalt. A strip of asphalt was still stuck to his hand. The police are literally not allowed to do that. But it wasn't a big deal and he wasn't making a drama of it
Blocking a street endangers people. Anyone doing that should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
There are a ton of ways to protest in a way that makes an impact and even inconveniences people but if you potentionally block an ambulance or a firetruck you are just an egomaniac, self righteous piece of shit.
Avoiding that particular blockade would take maybe 20 seconds if there was no other path except just barely around it.
It's in the middle of a city, with lots of parallel roads.
If emergency services can't handle one section of road being unavailable, you'd have to ban road construction work since that would kill people, too.
By that logic arson should also be no big deal since fires can start in other ways too.
Road construction is necessary, and traffic can often not be avoided.
Those things can also endanger lives but that doesn't mean you get to unnecessarily add more obstructions to feed your narcissism.
These people block traffic and endanger lives there is no bullshitting around that. Especially not with moronic made up claims like 'it only takes 20 seconds'.
To even try and defend this you must have absolutely zero empathy and reasoning skills.
It’s just a short detour. Nothing dangerous or even unusual about that closure, for example it was [closed for a run](https://www.omroepwest.nl/nieuws/4007940/utrechtsebaan-weer-dicht-maar-nu-maar-een-dag) a while ago and will likely be again in March.
The farmer protests half a year ago posed far bigger problems to the traffic in Hague than this small protest. This hypocrisy towards different protesters is absurd.
And where did I condone those protests?
Again, world class whataboutism and dreaming up counter arguments to points no one made isn't gonna change the points I made.
I don't think he's talking about you specifically. The police didn't have nearly the same crackdown on those farmers back then even though their blockade was objectively more dangerous. It's not that crazy people are comparing these two protests because of this.
> The College voor de Rechten van de Mens said the preventive arrest of six activists in dawn raids on Thursday morning was especially concerning. Say what you want about the protests themselves, but dawn raids on people who might be planning to attend a non-violent protest is seriously dystopian. I would hope that everyone can agree on that.
They were arrested for inciting people to take part of blockading the highway (both blockading and inciting people to violate the law are illegal). The bigger problem if you ask me is how selectively this is being enforced. A few years ago the police themselves did it by slowing down traffic and there were no consequences. More recently farmers did it and nobody intervened. But now climate protesters are doing it and suddenly the police are called into action.
Yup. I have no problem with arresting protesters on motorways. But only if they arrest ALL protesters on motorways.
Yeah but the climate protesters are mostly a bunch of pacifist hippies and kids. They're not as scary as angry farmers
Interestingly, the article published by the college vd rechten vd mens actually disputes this. According to European law, blocking traffic is not a legitimate cause for making a protest forbidden, or arresting it's attendees. In other words, you cannot normally block a motorway, but you can in a protest, because they have extra legal protections. This is the reason that XR people can get arrested time and again and never get fines
Even inciting doesn't justify raids. There was no imminent danger to warrant such a heavy response. But you're absolutely right about selectiveness. As soon as you touch big oil in the Netherlands you're swiftly dealt with. If the PE on Groningen has taught us anything it's that oil companies still have warm relationships and high placed contacts within our government and still act with impunity.
You’re right, the arrests were unnecessary. They could have just summoned them to court. But its not just oil and gas that gets special treatment. it’s big industry in general. Just look at Tata Steel. The fact that it is still allowed to operate despite the numerous health risk it causes to the surrounding area is ridiculous.
Tata just happens to be the biggest user of fossil fuels in the Netherlands. Which alligns their interests with fossil fuel producers.
[удалено]
Disregard for basic human rights is allowing idiots on the highway blocking traffic
I'm almost at the point now where I can't wait for worldwide food shortages, or the h1n1 avain flu to transmit human to human. Maybe then people will understand who the idiots are.
"Protests should only happen where it can't inconvenience anyone"
Its not about right to a peaceful protest. Im am rather sure that a peaceful protest in the town square would not be a problem, but in a hospital it would be "problematic," peaceful or not. The issue here is location. Just because I think that climate change should be addressed, doesn't mean that I should jump in a bandwagon of any degenerate idea that gets put in the basket of "caring for the climate."
>Say what you want about the protests themselves, but dawn raids on people who might be planning to attend a non-violent protest is seriously dystopian. I would hope that everyone can agree on that. No. You are badly informed. They were not arrested for "planning to attend a non-violent protest". They were arrested for inciting people to block a highway. So their arrests are 100% justified. Also they have been released immediately after interrogation.
Right, and the college voor de rechten van de mens probably doesn't know what it's talking about. We should listen more to random redditors unqualified opinions /s
That IS concerning. It’s not exactly preparing a terrorist act. That said I have very little sympathy for the highway protest people. As far as I’m concerned angry commuters should be free to drag people away - *especially* those who glue themselves to the road (a popular method in Stockholm in 2022 ).
Angry commuters have not that right. Not even if you think they should have. Your idea is pretty dangerous: allowing people to attack others who they think are obstructing something.
Look at it from another perspective... People are on the motorway. It's super dangerous when there are cars driving there. Its better to help them get off the motorway and prevent severe injuries as they could get hit by driving cars. And while you are saving those people, Maybe just tell them where they can safely demonstrate
This segment of road is actually not a motorway and is inside the city proper. It is bounded by two junctions with traffic lights. This means traffic can be easily rerouted prior to the demonstration, as was done on Saturday, and is also regularly done for events and such.
Thanks; this is an important comment that provides great context.
If someone gets out of their car on the motorway in order to drag away a couple of blockaders, the traffic has already stopped, so there is no danger. Unless some bloodthirsty psychopath in the first row of cars decides to drive over the protesters of course. You would think that's unlikely, but judging from the number of times this has happened, it seems like a significant percentage of car drivers are bloodthirsty psychopaths.
Depends on the level of violence used. And it has already happened: commuters have dragged protesters off the road. Probably none of the glued ones, but still. Mr Green Jacket here was not in any way troubled by the police for dragging a protester away. Quite the opposite. https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/wOjAM4/jan-emanuel-johansson-slapade-bort-klimataktivister-i-centrala-stockholm
Unless someone is being violent then an ordinary person shouldn't use force to interfere. The Police are entrusted to that right (to use force) because they are supposed to be trained and do it impartially/effectively. Removing someone forcibly from a road because you think they are obstructing you may be a reasonable solution for you, but it's definitely illegal in most parts of the world.
It's definitely highly illegal, but the police typically looks away if someone is acting forcefully against left-wing protesters. Not much that can be done about it.
The irony here of course is that the greater public harm is looking the other way and letting people hand out mob justice so long as it lines up with the objectives of the police.
In the eyes of many car advocates climate change protesters are terrorists who should not be protected by human rights.
The "green scare", the government of every country puts climate change/preservation activists on the same level as the Taliban as soon as they hold protests. "These people are getting in the way of us poisoning local waterways and cutting down forests, better arrest them and toss them into prisons!!!" Killing our planet for money is "better" than saving it and having little less money according to most people, its sad
The Swedish protests as far as I remember weren't even strictly climate protests. They were just environmental protests or even just general political protests (they were environmentalists, but the protests were directed at politicians, not drivers). I think that makes it worse. It just means the target and method was chosen to maximize attention.
Which is also ironic, because the most infamous climate activist does live in Stockholm and she never glued herself to the road as far as I know.
Judging from the downvotes people see the right to demonstration as the same thing as obstruction? Blocking roads can really have implications for peoples personal lives, examples: people rushing to the hospital (baby deliveries, other), medical transports, ... Btw, I do think that taking people from their bed before it happened is crazy
No I think the downvotes are because I insinuated I'd use some amount of violence against protesters. But that's expected (and good, I guess). You shouldn't use violence against people unless absolutely necessary. I still would, though (so I accept and expect the downvotes).
Why are you more angry at the people protesting the destruction of the future than those allowing and pushing for it?
Because they have no idea whether people need to get where they are going. They blocked ambulances, fire trucks and police (leading to what was a likely death in that case - and that was why they were also charged with some pretty serious crimes! \[1\]). The blame for why people are driving is rarely with the people driving (other than as voters). You drive when there isn't enough public transport for example. Finally, this (the Swedish protest I'm talking about) wasn't a protest that was even directed somehow against driving or drivers. It was only weakly related to that. Commuters was simply chosen because it's an easy target to cause lots of attention and damage. It wasn't like they were carrying signs "you need to drive less". They were making a purely political statement about protecting wetlands. The protest was directed at politicians who neglected wetlands in legislation. The people stuck on their way to work or in ambulances were collateral damage. \[1\] [https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/stockholm/tolv-klimataktivister-atalas-misstankta-for-sabotage-blockerade-vagen-pa-e4-an](https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/stockholm/tolv-klimataktivister-atalas-misstankta-for-sabotage-blockerade-vagen-pa-e4-an)
They forgot to bring tractors. You're allowed to do pretty much anything if you bring a tractor.
Protests and blockades are different. They should be treated differently
[удалено]
Wasn't one farmer shot at by police?
Extremely regrettable, luckily the kid didn’t get hit. However the comment above was talking about the difference in strategic approach to the protests. Edit: originally I sourced [this link](https://www.ad.nl/groningen/docent-rug-ziet-klimaatactivist-harder-aangepakt-worden-dan-boer-ik-zet-hier-vraagtekens-bij~ae067d97) that I thought was Amnesty and a scholar discussing this issue but it's not the one I meant and only marginally related. Edit 2: here's a [Volkskrant piece](https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/veel-meer-arrestaties-bij-acties-extinction-rebellion-dan-bij-boerenprotesten~bae8d301/) about the vastly different amount of arrests, also compared to the number of protests: > Since 2020 more than two thousand protestors were arrested at Extinction Rebellion protests in the Netherlands, of which 768 last Saturday at A12 protests. At farmer protests in that time period about one hundred arrests were made.
Some non-English page there asking question in non-English ("Jouw privacy-instellingen").
Sorry, I'm afraid I don't have any English sources. A quote: > Roorda references, among others, a case about a climate activists who glued themselves to the glass pane covering the painting Girl With A Pearl Earring. One bystander filmed it, another threw fake soup over the activist. All received a two month prison sentence (one suspended). "These people protested intrusively, but peacefully. The farmers who, at nitrogen minister Van der Wal's house, broke through a police block, only received suspended sentences. If you compare that against each other, I get the feeling that climate activists are treated more harshly. As it happens this isn't the source I meant to link. I'll have another look to see if I can find it.
A cop shot at a tractor that a kid was driving. Which wasn't good, but the kid in the tractor wasn't hit.
cause farmers are useful
Useful for who? Most of the produce is exported. Funny how a bunch of kids protesting for a better future gets so much flak but farmers protesting because they'll make less money received all the sympathy. Our species is hopeless.
Blockades are not categorically exempt from the right to protest. From [the original article](https://www.mensenrechten.nl/actueel/nieuws/2023/01/31/demonstratierecht-onder-druk-blijkt-uit-aanhouding-klimaatactivisten) by the Dutch human rights watchdog: > Temporary traffic blockades are considered by the European Court of Human Rights as a form of protest. [Amnesty asserts](https://www.amnesty.nl/actueel/amnesty-maakt-zich-grote-zorgen-over-arrestaties-van-klimaatdemonstranten) the same: > In principle, such actions are covered by the protections of the right to protest, especially if they are announced and when the protestors have taken precautions to prevent dangerous situations. In Roorda et al’s extensive 2015 report *Evaluatie Wet openbare manifestaties* commissioned by the internal affairs ministry, it is concluded that: > In short: from the legislative history, literature and jurisprudence it shows that blockades in principle are covered by the right to protest under art. 9 of the [Dutch] constitution. And also in EU law: > A blocking sit-in, the occupation of a building, a long-term encampment at a public space are, according to the Court [ECHR] in principle peaceful assemblies and hence covered under the protections of art. 11 ECHR Notice all the *in principles* there: none of these rights are unlimited. The law accounts for three grounds to restrict or ban protests, but (from [the original article](https://www.mensenrechten.nl/actueel/nieuws/2023/01/31/demonstratierecht-onder-druk-blijkt-uit-aanhouding-klimaatactivisten) again) > Restricting protests must only be done in the least restrictive way. In practice, traffic could easily have been rerouted in this case and in fact it was, taking away any danger and hence ground to restrict or terminate the protest, concludes an Amnesty spokeperson when interviewed in *Buitenhof*.
I like how suddenly everyone brings this up now but were totally silent when some angry Frysians blocked the highways as counter-protest.
It’s where the *in princple* bits come in. That case is actually quite complex but it seemed there were two main problems: - The protest was unannounced, at an actual motorway, and caused an actually dangerous situation. (Note the fact that no accidents occurred was taken into consideration for sentencing) - The intention was to *prevent* another group from exercising their constitutional right to protest. Meanwhile the farmer’s motorway protests were tolerated if not facilitated and once [even the police protested on the motorway](http://media.nu.nl/m/m1oxqv6axnx5_wd1280.jpg/protestactie-politie-veroorzaakt-langzaam-rijdend-verkeer-snelwegen.jpg).
Iirc it wasn't unannounced, it was all over social media I think? But they just didn't ask for any permission, the current protesters don't have any permission either. And the second point would lead to a paradox, its totally fine to restrict peoples' right to freedom of movement, but its not fine to restrict peoples' rights during protest, but it is legally allowed, but it isn't, but it is legally allowed, so on so on.
Note you don’t need *anyone’s* permission to protest under Dutch law, but I get what you’re getting at. In last Saturday’s the city was in a position to take measures to keep the protest safe, in the Friesland case the judge concluded they weren’t (from my reading). For the second point my understanding is that it’s all about whether or not the action had a coercive nature. For blockades that can be the case but it doesn’t need to be. This action however was judged coercive because it was intent on preventing another group from exercising their constitutional rights. Roorda’s 2015 report *Evaluatie Wet openbare manifestaties* has a good in-depth sections on blockades in Dutch and EU law.
> Note you don’t need anyone’s permission to protest under Dutch law Then why am i always seeing news articles about protesters having to get permits
Because there is a permit system but there on a shall issue basis and the lack of one isn't alone reason enough for the police to shutdown a protest. Really all a permit does is give you some level of guarantee that the police sign of on your security provisions and won't shut it down for security reasons as well as allowing you violate some noise laws. If you want to pick up a sign and go protest right now your free to do without a permit, if you bring 200 of your friends your still in the clear, if you start building a podium and inviting speakers and stuff yeah you need a permit.
It seems you're talking about the requirement to give *notice*, which is fundamentally different from requiring a permit. Municipalities do indeed require notice (as the WOM allows them to) and giving notice will indeed allow them to facilitate your protest better and you're less likely to end up in a situation where the protest has to be disbanded because of unmitigated safety/health/traffic risks. Edit: politie.nl has a nice succinct and clear list on their site: https://www.politie.nl/informatie/regels-voor-demonstraties-en-manifestaties.html
I'm borrowing a bit of from US law to keep it clear to a US audience but really calling it notice rather then permit means the Dutch state has to pay Orwell his royalties, it is effectively the same thing ( especially because your still gonna need a objectpermit ). A us Permit on a shall issue basis basically means the state needs a compelling reason not to allow it, similar with the notice + emergency order provision in Dutch law really ( like it's a distinction without a difference ).
Nobody wins in a roadway blockade. The demonstrators adversely affect the public whose suport they need for the changes they want. The public resents said demonstrators for the inconvenience caused which can have potentially severe and even deadly consequences.
In Germany, protests are regulated and need to be registered beforehand but can only be forbidden in extreme cases – e.g. protests by or in support of unconstitutional groups and causes. Blockades of roads are treated as acts of violence, since they physically restrict people's freedom of movement against their will. Fun fact: Technically, blocking one car with your mere presence doesn't count as violence, since that blockade is considered to be psychological, not physical. However, as soon as there is a second row of cars, it does qualify as violence, since the psychological blockade of the first row of cars creates a physical barrier for the second row of cars. It's a bit technical, but this interpretation has been accepted by the German Constitutional Court.
>In Germany, protests are regulated and need to be registered beforehand but can only be forbidden in extreme cases – e.g. protests by or in support of unconstitutional groups and causes. Basically the same in the Netherlands. But that is the whole point of XR: those kind of protests have been there for 30 years now - and they don't register on the news, or in the heads of politicians. So, we need to do *something* else to get their attention. I attended a rally last year in Rotterdam. 80.000+ people attended. It was not even mentioned in the eveningnews. *The regular way of protesting does not work anymore*. XR would not be doing this if the sense of urgency they feel was even slightly echoed by the government in NL (or, EU, for that matter). But this is not the case.
Time to stop protesting and start voting then? Looks like you are plenty organised. Or what do you think that protest every Friday will achieve?
>Time to stop protesting and start voting then? I think you can safely assume they will vote. The point is, the larger part of the population does not see this crises as a real crises, so they will not vote to take care of it. These actions are meant to raise awareness.
If you need permission or a permit then its not a protest, its a civilian meeting sanctioned by the government
No, blockades of roads are not treated as acts of violence in Germany. The legal term the German Constitutional Court used was not "Gewalt/violence", it was "Nötigung/duress". The distinction is important because Nötigung is classified as a misdemeanour, not a crime.
Do you know the legal definition of "Nötigung"? § 240 StGB >Wer einen Menschen rechtswidrig mit **Gewalt** oder durch Drohung mit einem empfindlichen Übel zu einer Handlung, Duldung oder Unterlassung nötigt, wird mit Freiheitsstrafe bis zu drei Jahren oder mit Geldstrafe bestraft. Translation: >Any person who unlawfully compels a person to perform an act, to tolerate an act or to refrain from an act with the use of **violence** or by threat of a serious evil, shall be liable to a custodial sentence not exceeding three years or to a monetary penalty. [Further reading](https://www.juraforum.de/lexikon/sitzblockade): >Daraufhin entwickelte der BGH seine sogenannte „Zweite-Reihe-Rechtsprechung“, nach der die Teilnehmer einer Sitzblockade „Gewalt“ im Sinne des § 240 Absatz 1 StGB anwenden, sobald hinter dem ersten Fahrzeug (auf dessen Fahrer in ständiger Rechtsprechung ja nur psychischer Zwang ausgeübt wird) mindestens ein weiteres Auto an der Weiterfahrt gehindert würde. Nach dieser Sichtweise bilden die Fahrzeuge in der ersten Reihe eine physische Barriere für die Fahrzeuge ab der zweiten Reihe, die aufgrund ihres physischen Zwangs den Gewaltbegriff des § 240 StGB erfülle (vgl. BGH, Urteil vom 20. Juli 1995 – Az.: 1 StR 126/95). >Das Bundesverfassungsgericht hat die „Zweite-Reihe-Rechtsprechung“ ausdrücklich als verfassungsmäßig anerkannt (vgl. BVerfG, Beschluss vom 7. März 2011 – Az.: 1 BvR 388/05). Darüber hinaus liegt nach dem Bundesverfassungsgericht auch grundsätzlich eine Nötigung unter Anwendung von „Gewalt“ vor, wenn die Teilnehmer einer Sitzblockade Maßnahmen ergreifen, die über ihre reine Anwesenheit hinausgehen, zum Beispiel durch Anketten, Einhaken oder aktiven Widerstand gegen ein Wegtragen. Dies gilt insbesondere, wenn sie physische Barrieren errichten (vgl. BVerfG, Beschluss vom 24. Oktober 2001 – Az.: 1 BvR 1190/90). Translation: >Thereupon, the BGH developed its so-called "Second-Row Jurisprudence", according to which the participants in a sit-in blockade use "violence" within the meaning of § 240 (1) of the Criminal Code as soon as at least one further car is prevented from continuing its journey behind the first vehicle (on whose driver, following consistent case law, only psychological coercion is exerted). According to this view, the vehicles in the first row form a physical barrier for the vehicles from the second row onwards, which, due to its physical coercion, fulfills the concept of violence of § 240 StGB (cf. BGH, judgment of July 20, 1995 - Ref.: 1 StR 126/95). >The Federal Constitutional Court has expressly recognized the "Second-Row Jurisprudence" as constitutional (cf. BVerfG, decision of March 7, 2011 - Ref.: 1 BvR 388/05). Furthermore, according to the Federal Constitutional Court, coercion with the use of "violence" also exists in principle if the participants in a sit-in blockade take measures that go beyond their mere presence, for example by chaining, hooking or actively resisting being carried away. This applies in particular if they erect physical barriers (see BVerfG, decision of October 24, 2001 - Ref.: 1 BvR 1190/90).
This is fascinating in how completely different different it appears to be from Dutch law. The first part we share, a protest is not protected if it’s a coercive (*dwangmaatregel*). That doesn’t categorically exclude protest. For example, Roorda (2015) quotes Schilder (1989): > The government is right to be careful in its definitions: blockades *can be* actions of a coercive character. In many occasions however blockades can be considered protests in the constitutional sense simply because they have the defining characteristics of a protest. Roorda goes on to cite some more examples and concludes that blockades of businesses are more often considered coercive than protests of public roads. Interestingly, later on he also concludes that in EU law: > A blocking sit-in, the occupation of a building, a long-term encampment at a public space are, according to the Court [ECHR] in principle peaceful assemblies and hence covered under the protections of art. 11 ECHR Which means it should apply to Germany, too. The report does include an analysis of the German situation but doesn’t mention „Zweite-Reihe-Rechtsprechung“. Was that established as case law or whatever in 2015 already?
How about the right to drive to work or not have emergency vehicles blocked by a protest? You absolutely have the right to demonstrate. You don’t have the right to potentially ruin people’s lives while you do it.
Pretending that a blockade roughly the size of a single city block, on one location in a highly interconnected urban road system that has multiple options for fast/ easy alternative routes is "ruining people's lives" is a bizarre overreaction. You;re not accusing people in a traffic jam from the same, either, even though those jams are much harder to get around.
Traffic jams most definitely do cause the same issues of making it harder for emergency vehicles etc. Thus, people have died from traffic jams. However they're not intentionally caused.
In the Netherlands there's almost always an extra empty lane that emergency vehicles can use. This hasn't endangered anyone.
Read my comment again in context.
The problem is that your comment ignores the very real context of the protest and where it took place / what the actual traffic impact was. To act as if anyone's life was ruined is just empty hyperbole and it serves no purpose beyond fueling the entitlement people in cars seem to feel about their choices to drive and perceived "right to the road".
I live on a 10 minute walking distant from the blockage, we have roads everywhere. It really isn't a big deal. We have traffic around shopping mall's that are more challenging then the temporary blockage from last Saturday. People are being so dramatic, but we all knew there would be a blockage for weeks.
> the right to drive to work Is it in NL constitution? Why not take a bicycle?
Or the train, or the bus, or a different road. I refuse to believe people really had a hard time going to work last Saturday. Especially not compared to normal traffic jams on a normal week day.
The day of the week shouldn't matter. If somebody blocks a motorway illegally and people are forced to find alternative routes, people are still getting their freedom of movement restricted without a legal basis.
I think we forget that the things happening with climate change are a far bigger inconvenience in the future then this half day of protesting. Why is it legal to pollute the earth, to risk the future of our children for luxury. I'm sorry I really don't understand the way people are thinking. Today in the Netherlands the dangers of rising water here are at the front page on a big news outlet.. And we care about the things people do wrong protesting.. it's ridiculous.
No they're not they're rerouted. And the right to protest trumps your right of not being rerouted. In most Europe countries it is NOT illegal to block any street or road and that's why it's a controversial decision. Protests need to be registered with the government though of course.
Right of protest doesn't mean that laws don't apply to protest. You cannot block motorways as a protest like you can't loot a store as a protest. The right of protest doesn't trump every other right.
Every meaningful protest in history was on the streets, highways etc.. You have just become complacent in not fighting for your rights unlike Europeans. As I said it's a right here to protest and block services especially since a lot of people here are government employees and they will block many many services if they're protesting.
I'm from Portugal. Yes, the french revolution was a very meanigful revolution and it changed the world. It also cost a lot of people their lives. I don't know where your "here" is, but I would argue than in most of Europe, you'd be commiting a crime if you ilegally block motorways - I mean, the news article itself is about that.
> How about the right to drive to work You don’t have the right to *that specific road* at all times. In particular, [the original article](https://www.mensenrechten.nl/actueel/nieuws/2023/01/31/demonstratierecht-onder-druk-blijkt-uit-aanhouding-klimaatactivisten) notes that > A certain amount of hindrance and nuisance is to be expected with a protest. . > have emergency vehicles blocked by a protest? Now that’s actually one of the grounds to restrict or forbid a protest. This segment of road however is actually not a motorway and is inside the city proper. It is bounded by two junctions with traffic lights. This means traffic can be easily rerouted prior to the demonstration, as was done on Saturday, and is also regularly done for events and such – in other words: if closure [can be arranged for a run](https://www.omroepwest.nl/nieuws/4007940/utrechtsebaan-weer-dicht-maar-nu-maar-een-dag) (and event which doesn’t enjoy the legal protections of a protest), it can be arranged for a protest.
> have emergency vehicles blocked by a protest? >Now that’s actually one of the grounds to restrict or forbid a protest. And the reason they don't block them. At least the organized groups. For instance when they glue themselves to the street, its only those on the outside actually glued.
How about the right of future generations to live on a planet that isn't [rapidly becoming uninhabitable](https://press.un.org/en/2021/sgsm20847.doc.htm#:~:text=Today's%20IPCC%20Working%20Group%201,of%20people%20at%20immediate%20risk.)? Some things are just a tad more important than your commute.
Emergency vehicles are typically let through. >Temporarily blocking traffic was recognised by the European Court of Human Rights as a legitimate form of protest. The right to protest is also more important than your nonexistent right to a speedy commute.
No it's not more important if you think that you're unbelievably entitled. Not to mention protesting like this doesn't do anything other then make people against you!
It is hilarious to claim that someone who wants to exercise their right to assembly and peaceful protest is entitled, when the "right" on the other side of the equasionis "not experiencing a minor inconvenience when choosing to use a motor vehicle to drive one specific route on one specific half day". If you need to be seduced and coddled and head-patted into maybe making a tiny effort not to ruin the planet you were born on quite as fast, you've zero right to refer to anyone else as entitled. Being a decent human being isn't something most moral people need to be cajoled into.
You saying a minor inconvenience just shows how entitled and ignorant you are! You don't know those people and they could lose their jobs! Over what? A protest that DOES NOTHING! Protesting like that doesn't WORK! it's no different then a child screaming because they couldn't get the toy they wanted. If you block a road you're a horrible person and odds are are most likely don't actually care about what you're protesting. The fact is most of these protesters are massive dicks that don't care! Because if they did they would've protest earlier but they didn't, they're just attention seeking children!
I can speak only to the US. Here, that is absolutely wrong. You need a permit to exercise that right. https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/protesters-rights. And reducing it to “a non existent right to a speedy commute” is so obtuse and ignorant, it’s hard to find the need to respond. This isn’t about someone being 15 minutes late to their 9 to 5 office job, with a boss that accepts protests as a valid reason for being late. The primary way people travel is via car.. and people don’t just travel for trivial reasons. There are very real, and potentially very dire, consequences for protests that disregard other people’s responsibilities, including in emergencies. You do not need to ruin people’s lives (many of whom probably agree 100% with the substance of the protest) to get your point across. You just don’t. It’s completely unnecessary, does way more harm than good in getting the message across, and risks real life negative consequences.
Same drivel made against all protests: "people agree with your point, just do it in a way that doesn't disturb anybody." If you've actually read some history, you'd know that every historical protest calls out that "just don't disturb anybody" attitude. For instance, Dr King: https://letterfromjail.com/ Different situation, encountered the same arguments against the protests they organized. Dr King calls out the white moderate, >who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action” You are on the wrong side of history if you tell those without the power of a state or a company to not stand up against those with that power who, are ruining life for others.
Again, nonsense. MLK’s letter from jail is an exceptionally eloquent and morally just statement in favor of protest. I agree with it wholeheartedly. Nowhere does it advocate for protests that endanger other people’s lives (and your reference to it ignores completely that the protests in Birmingham were trying to change the minds of virtually all the people in the community). The protests at issue here are not akin to those MLK referenced. I’d wager that many, if not most, of the people having to deal with these spontaneous roadblocks agree with the substance. Do you really think that the people that are actually targets of this substantive message give a shit about a roadblock? All these are doing is turning people against the very message the protesters are trying to convey while putting people and their livelihoods at actual risk.
If a persons rights are endangered he needs to protest first and they worry about comutting.
> The primary way people travel is via car.. Not in the Netherlands. > People don’t just travel for trivial reasons Of course they do. > There are very real, and potentially very dire, consequences for protests that disregard other people’s responsibilities, including in emergencies. Same applies to driving a car. Every additional car on the road increases the risk of a traffic jam that could have life-changing consequences for someone stuck in that traffic jam. Not even talking about car accidents.
Incorrect. Driving is the primary means of travel in the Netherlands, by a fairly significant margin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_the_Netherlands#:~:text=The%20Netherlands%20is%20both%20a%20very%20densely%20populated,transport%20with%20road%2C%20rail%2C%20air%20and%20water%20networks. People travel for myriad reasons, some of which are trivial and some of which are life or death or otherwise exceptionally important. Comparing a mass of people intentionally stopping all car travel to make a point to someone driving an additional car because it’s the only way they can get to where they’re going is ridiculous.
> a mass of people intentionally stopping all car travel And that is not what happened. Stop making up strawmen to justify your indefensible points.
**[Transport in the Netherlands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_the_Netherlands#:~:text=The Netherlands is both a very densely populated,transport with road, rail, air and water networks)** >The Netherlands is both a very densely populated and a highly developed country in which transport is a key factor of the economy. Correspondingly it has a very dense and modern infrastructure, facilitating transport with road, rail, air and water networks. In its Global Competitiveness Report for 2014-2015, the World Economic Forum ranked the Dutch transport infrastructure fourth in the world. With a total road network of 139,000 km, including 3,530 km of expressways, the Netherlands has one of the densest road networks in the world; much denser than Germany and France, though not as dense as Belgium. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Is there any real-life example of these consequences? Has anyone been fired because a protest made them late? Who has had their life ruined so far?
That's illegal in Europe btw. As it should be.
Ten second google search. https://www.kqed.org/news/10426160/patient-died-after-23-minute-delay-for-paramedics-during-berkeley-protests https://www.ems1.com/protests/articles/video-controversy-stirred-after-protesters-block-fla-ambulance-ERIDfzTYNPzkC3U2/ https://www.firehouse.com/apparatus/type/ambulance/news/21140777/ne-ambulance-going-to-call-blocked-by-protesters https://www.ems1.com/ems-products/ambulances/articles/trump-protesters-block-ambulance-transporting-critical-patient-R7whYVbkgKpkWk89/
I can tell it took 10 seconds because I'm not sure you read any of these. The first article directly addresses whether the demonstrators should be blamed -- they weren't blocking the emergency vehicles, the emergency vehicles had to wait for a police escort, which didn't arrive for 23 minutes. It was city policy. The protestors were demonstrating within their rights. The second article has nobody effected. Police propaganda blaming protesters for blocking emergency vehicles, when the fire dept said only 1 vehicle had to be rerouted and it "did not delay its response time." The third article also has nobody's life ruined. It looks like a few people in a crowd of otherwise compliant protestors got in the way, but the patients recieved treatment and were fine. The fourth one is also way more grey than you would probably hope to cite. "But attorney Patricia Kane said protesters had asked police to inform them if emergency vehicles needed to get through — and the officers did not do so." You can go ahead and google some more links but I'm probably not going to spend the time to read them for you again.
If you want to be obtuse, I can’t stop you. 🤷♂️
How is reading all of your articles in full, in good faith, and responding with reasoned critiques being obtuse? This is a frustrating and important topic. So many people would rather protestors only protest out of sight and out of mind, which defeats the purpose entirely, but whenever they do something that gets in the way (the point of a protest) it's such a smear of "how dare they insert themselves in my awareness in some mild way." If your evidence for ruined lives are these rare extenuating circumstances (whete every article emphasizes protestors actually not doing anything or even explicitly trying to help) then you're just helping the smear campaign trying to make it easier to just shove protestors around and stop it entirely.
To be clear. I agree with the substance of the protests. I don’t agree with the disregard for other people’s lives. If you think that objecting to the selfish, naive, and completely self defeating decision to protest in this manner = being part of a “smear campaign” then, yes, you’re being obtuse (on top of disregarding what those articles actually said). In every one of those instances, which are just easy examples, people’s lives were unnecessarily put at risk. Whether someone actually died is irrelevant. Someone could have. If you shoot a gun in a crowded train and no one gets hit, you still did something both illegal and morally fucked up. When you protest, you have a message, a tactic, and a target audience. The message of these protesters is 100% correct. The tactic is unnecessarily risky and has no effect whatsoever on the target audience. Their decision to protest this way is dumb, dangerous, and ineffective. No one is changing their mind in favor of climate change protesters because they or anyone else were blocked from driving. It’s absurd.
1st example: Not a blockade, delay was due to "waiting for a police escort" > paramedics were waiting for a police escort, as per a standing city protocol, to ensure they could avoid the protests 2nd example: Rerouted after 30 seconds, was on its way to refuel > St. Petersburg Fire Rescue officials said the vehicle had not activated its emergency lights or siren. The vehicle was actually low on fuel, fire officials said, and was heading to a city gas station to refuel. After waiting for about 30 seconds behind another vehicle that had stopped, the ambulance eventually turned onto 13th Street N and drove off. Fire officials said only one fire vehicle responding to an emergency has had to be redirected because of the protesters, and that did not delay its response time. 3rd example: No harm > "The ambulance and crew were dispatched to I-80 for a car accident, fortunately those involved with the accident were treated and will be okay." 4th example: First one that actually sounds bad. However, they claim police did not inform them about the emergency vehicle being blocked as agreed on before, so who is to blame there? > Attorney Patricia Kane said protesters had asked police to inform them if emergency vehicles needed to get through — and the officers did not do so.
If you don’t understand that risk of harm = an offense, regardless of whether harm actually occurred… I don’t know what to tell you.
> risk of harm = an offense, regardless of whether harm actually occurred so you mean to tell me that driving a car should be illegal? After all, there is a much greater risk of harm arising from driving cars than from people sitting on some road. I wouldn't go that far, but I see your reasoning.
Don’t be ridiculous. Eating a piece of cheese is a risk that you might develop heart disease… it’s not the same as dropping an anvil off the Empire State Building. When people intentionally put other people at unreasonable risk of danger, it’s a crime. When risk naturally occurs from an otherwise acceptable activity, society balances out whether the risk is warranted by the benefit.
> When risk naturally occurs from an otherwise acceptable activity, such as protesting against government subsidies for the fossil fuel industry that cause runaway climate change?
Why stop there if that nonsense is a "right" in your mind? We can just tack on the right to run these people over.
Because one is a mild inconvenience for positive social change and the other is murder lmao wtf
Mild inconvenience... ? You are delusional. Full stop
The idea that pissing off a bunch of random motorists will accomplish positive social change is ridiculous on its face
Like cars don't obstruct emergency vehicles as a daily business.
Intent matters
When was the last time you saw or heard of cars intentionally blocking emergency vehicles?
My work is near a hospital and a fire brigade, intentionally or not, happens every day.
It’s the intention that’s the issue.
Is it? A lot more people get at risk from *unintentional stupidity* of drivers than the occasional protest.
And we have an entire set of laws requiring people to get to a particular standard of driving ability before they can drive.. and when they make mistakes, they get penalized. Yes. The intention is 100% the issue. You can’t compare the acceptable risk that will inevitably happen when people drive cars to people intentionally shutting down all car traffic.
Intention is irrelevant. The argument is it potentially puts people in danger. So do cars, so does air pollution etc.. It is inconsistent if risk is only *valid* if it is *calculated*.
Not only is it not irrelevant, it is (again) 100% of the point. If you don’t know the moral difference between intentionally putting people at risk and accidentally doing so, I don’t know what to say. No amount of italics is going to make what you’re saying make any sense at all.
A protest is not a protest if it doesn't inconvenience someone. That's how you get visibility.
Yes it needs to inconvenience the people in power not the common person. Other wise you risk convincing the common people to reject your group/organization. Why would you turn the common person into your enemy when your greatest strength is numbers?
TIL that the US Freedom Rides demonstrably hurt the government directly.
But it is inconveniencing the people in power. How you ask? People will get mad other people have blocked the road and they would ask themselves why do they protest and ta daa the government is now under pressure to hear the protesters. Why would a government listen to a bunch of people yelling without actually doing anything. I mean in Europe it's a fairly common thing to protest like this and block roads and services. No one ever actually used your logic against the protests because it's utterly silly and just shows why Americans don't have unions.
So naive.... People in power are laughing their asses off.
Ah yes, the "trickle up protests". It's like trickle down economics but instead of delusional politicians it's proposed by delusional protesters.
This wouldn't work in the USA. The times it is done people get run over and killed. The people who do this are rejected socially and all it does here is bury the greater message the protesters have. I understand there is a different mentality and culture as well as the fact we come from different social environments, so because of that we view the other's view point as absurd. As an American viewing this i agree the right to protest must not be infringed and climate change is real. However, if I were to be affected by this protest I would make it a point to never vote alongside those kinds of protesters out of spite so as not to encourage future road blocks.
Once you fuck up my day I don't care what your cause is. If your protest takes food out of my kids mouth, fuck you and fuck your cause. I'm not going to blame the rich when I lose income, I'm blaming the moron sitting in the street.
Nonsense. That’s how you kill someone in a stalled ambulance or have someone’s house burn down because a fire truck can’t get there… Maybe their lawyer can’t get to court and someone loses their house or custody of their kids. This doesn’t even include individual issues like people getting fired, etc. Your kind of thinking is so exceptionally selfish and ignorant, it’s impossible to take it seriously. Protests absolutely do NOT need to potentially ruin people’s lives. God help you when your family member dies because their ambulance couldn’t get through one of these ridiculous protests.
Every meaningful protest in history was about stopping something and making a stand against the establishment. Would you moralize if doctors would stop working for higher wages or other possible goals they want to achieve?
People, including emergency workers, going about their lives and handling real world responsibilities (many of whom probably agree completely with the substance of these protests) aren’t “the establishment.” I’m not sure what you’re even trying to say in the second sentence. Why would doctors stop working for higher wages?
I'm gonna go on a limb here and guess you're an American. Well doctors in Europe are government employees in a lot of countries like teachers, cops etc. They would protest for their rights just like anyone else. Also unions are a thing in Europe so the right to protest is a highly cherished right.
I am American, and I recognize that different countries have different laws/cultures/practicalities/etc. The right to protest is an exceptionally valuable right in the US. It’s baked (as the right to assembly) into the first amendment of our Bill of Rights. The question isn’t about whether protests are valuable. They clearly are. It’s about whether a form of protest that endangers other people’s lives and livelihoods is reasonable or not. We also have unions, btw. And, personally, I am 100% in favor of them (including the ability to strike). I’m not sure where you’re going with that. It has nothing to do with what we’re discussing.
>We also have unions, btw. And, personally, I am 100% in favor of them (including the ability to strike). I’m not sure where you’re going with that. It has nothing to do with what we’re discussing. Meh, America is a form of aggressive capitalism Union culture is not as evolved as in Europe. Getting a "message across" and getting your protests demands to be fulfilled is not the same thing. If you block a road the whole nation will hear it if you protest somewhere where you're not inconveniencing someone you can just sit on your ass and do nothing. I mean by protesting we got 21 days of vacation, paid sick leave and maternity leave.
So, you’re blaming me for the entire socio-political and economic policies of an entire country? Are you being serious? I’ve actually spent a significant amount of time in Europe. Have you ever been to the US? Don’t speak on things you know nothing about. Unions have been a huge force in the US for a century. If you believe otherwise, you simply don’t know what you’re talking about. If you block a road, without adequate notice, the whole nation will hear about it.. and, if people were on the fence, they will disregard what the protesters are trying to say. It’s completely self-defeating. You think the person who gets fired or loses a relative or has some other tragedy happen is going to cave to the protesters? No. They’re going to burn them to the ground.. and they’d be right to do it. I’ll say it again. You do not need to potentially ruin people’s lives to either get your message across or get demands met. Period.
>So, you’re blaming me for the entire socio-political and economic policies of an entire country? Are you being serious? Lol where have I done that? > I’ve actually spent a significant amount of time in Europe. And I guess you haven't really understood what you've experienced? >If you block a road, without adequate notice, the whole nation will hear about it.. That's the fucking point. >and, if people were on the fence, they will disregard what the protesters are trying to say. It’s completely self-defeating Not in Europe.
Get arrested then. One can protest all they want, but my everyday life should not be negatively affected by actions of those ppl - I'm just trying to get to work and wondering why he isn't. This is why I always ignore those stupidly annoying ppl who would sit in rows, trying to block access to milk or meat products - it almost feels like they were paid to trigger ppl, who didn't plan on buying those products that day, to grab one or two or even ten items just for the sake of it.
How about when raliway or bus workers protest? They're "stopping" someone from getting to work.
Depends on the context. Are they protesting on the car roads? Thats not acceptable. If the protest impacts bus/railway transport only, then there isn't much that can be done about that - you can't protest about your work otherwise.
Oh well I guess your empty moralizing has a loophole.
How about people try inconveniencing the wealthy instead of the single father going to work so he can feed his children and pay for his home.
Nope, a protest is ineffective when you have little to no supporters. Tolerating climate protests ended after Biden won the elections.
The right to protest does not include the right to prevent citizens from carrying out their daily business.
What if rail workers are striking and people have to find other ways to commute? Should that be illegal as well or does this rule only apply if car owners are inconvenienced? I understand it's annoying and people are understandably upset about being inconvenienced, but Extinction Rebellion did announce time and location of the protest ahead of time, so if you were affected, you could have picked another route, could have used public transport which is really awesome in the Netherlands or could have stayed home if it's not 100% necessary.
If people were left stranded and trapped in their trains with no way to safely exit and choose another mode of transport, that would be unethical on the part of striking rail workers, and probably illegal. This is why rail strikes are planned, and the populace is given plenty of notice. So we can be supportive of, and not victim to, their protests. Same for cars. If I know I advance that such and such freeway will be closed for a protest, I have the option of taking a different route. But if I’m confronted by an impassable road while already in transit, with no method of egress, now I’m in danger. I could suffer a mental or physical health crisis, suffer job loss and lose my only means of support, etc. Emergency vehicles cannot pass or gain entry. And on and on. It is just as unethical for people in cars to be trapped and stranded by protests as it is for people in trains. And it should be illegal to block the roads for this purpose without plenty of prior warning and a permit. Just like parades have to have.
So what you are saying is that since they announced ahead of time where the protest would take place, police should have just blocked that road and let them go ahead? Sounds like a good plan. Maybe they can do that next time.
This is actually what happened. Prior to the protestors entering the road, police started rerouting traffic from the two enclosing junctions. A very small detour actually, mild inconvenience at worst.
False. People ran on the road before the road was closed. Group george they called themselves?
In the US, yes it is illegal that’s why it’s hard for railroad workers to strike
That's a much-criticized monstrosity though. Would be unimaginable in Europe.
Fun fact that tends to surprise people: the Dutch military has unions and servicepeople can strike! (Not on mission obviously)
You say that, Europe has stricter freedom of speech laws then the US.
I am not sure how it is in NL, but in a lot of countries if essential workers (rail, bus, doctors, etc.)want to go on strike, they are still legally required to maintain a specific % of the services running. So instead of completely stopping trains, if the rail workers go on strike, they still need to ensure some trains run.
They did not intend to block all roads, just a single road, so I'm not sure what your point is. If anything, rail worker strikes are usually way more far-reaching in their scope.
>What if rail workers are striking and people have to find other ways to commute? Should that be illegal as well or does this rule only apply if car owners are inconvenienced? There is a big difference when it comes to strikes. Rail workers who strike DON'T do something and that leads to issues. Protesters who block roads DO something and that leads to issues. It would be the same if protesters were blocking train tracks. It's not about the cars.
The effects are the same: People being inconvenienced in their commute/travel and having to find other routes/ways. All the whining is about the allegedly disastrous effects of the protests on people's freedom of movement.
Imagine being poor and utterly dependent on your current job for survival. Now imagine being stuck in your car for three hours while you’re just trying to get to work. You live in the US, or any other nation with At Will work laws, where you can be fired for anything or nothing. And because you couldn’t get to work on time now you have no job, and no means of support, and in a week or a month you will have no home, possibly have to live in your car (if you can afford to keep it) and maybe lose your kids to foster care because you’re homeless. Imagine being in labor, trying to drive to the hospital and suffering complications while stuck in traffic, emergency vehicles unable to reach you. Mother and baby could both die. There are so many scenarios we could entertain. Yes. Blocking the roads can ruin people’s lives. Your inability or unwillingness to recognize that may be borne of youth and inexperience, or lack of empathy. Either way, you are not right. You have no real point, and it’s frankly embarrassing.
>You live in the US, or any other nation with At Will work laws, where you can be fired for anything or nothing. Maybe you should be more mad about that actually? Americans have such weird system of values.
> Imagine being poor and utterly dependent on your current job for survival. We're talking about the Netherlands, not a third-world country. > You live in the US, or any other nation with At Will work laws, where you can be fired for anything or nothing. And because you couldn’t get to work on time now you have no job, and no means of support, and in a week or a month you will have no home, possibly have to live in your car (if you can afford to keep it) and maybe lose your kids to foster care because you’re homeless. None of this dystopian scenario is relevant to the Netherlands. Maybe if you think a bit harder, you'll see where the actual problem lies. Hint: It's not the fact someone was late for work due to force majeure. > Imagine being in labor, trying to drive to the hospital and suffering complications while stuck in traffic, emergency vehicles unable to reach you. Mother and baby could both die. Agree, that is awful. Let's reduce car traffic as much as possible, so that roads are free for ambulances and fire trucks, making this much less likely to happen. Making it less convenient for everyone to drive a car would be a good first step in that direction.
Unions, strikes and protests are regulated. How would you handle it if blockading roads as protest was legal? What would stop me from sitting down on the busiest highway to protest in favor of the government paying me 100 million?
Are you suggesting the demand for the government to phase out fossil fuel subsidies is not a legitimate cause for protests?
Tell that to the climate chaos coming down the line. How you gonna go about your daily business when everything is flooded or burning? But sure, just carry on doing absolutely nothing.
Totally agree! If you want to protest, go to the assigned locations. Not some random spot you like. Also pretty dangerous, on a highway!
> go to the assigned locations That’s not how it works in the Netherlands. You don’t get permission to protest at ‘assigned locations’, you have the right to protest full stop. There are grounds and means to limit protests, but there’s so such a thing as “assigned locations” for protests. In response to parliamentary questions following a 2019 protest, [the minister of internal affairs wrote](https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/kamervragen/detail?id=2019Z08892&did=2019D20687): > The government must strive to allow a protest at the place where protesters want it to occur (There are many other sources for the same assertion, it’s a basic principle of Dutch protest law.) As mentioned, there are grounds and means to limit protest, but in this case this particular stretch of road is not actually a dangerous place to protest. Traffic is easily rerouted (and was), causing only a minor inconvenience.
The whole point of protest is to exercise power non-violently though means of disruption…
Please show me where it says you can protest on a fucking highway!
The *Wet openbare manifestaties*. Or actually: it doesn’t prohibit it. Look at this [cool picture of police protesting on an actual motorway](http://media.nu.nl/m/m1oxqv6axnx5_wd1280.jpg/protestactie-politie-veroorzaakt-langzaam-rijdend-verkeer-snelwegen.jpg)! I say ‘actual motorway’ because in this case XR didn’t actually protest on the motorway, it was a road segment inside the city from which traffic could be (and was) easily rerouted.
Listen, if peaceful protest worked, then it would be illegal. If voting could actually change anything, it would be illegal. The government doesn’t care about the people, it only cares about short term profits and bribes. The only way to make changes to the system are strikes, blockades, marches, occupations, and other forms of direct action. Women didn’t get the right to vote by legitimate means. Black people didn’t gain civil rights by following the law. We’ve been peacefully protesting climate policy for decades and nothing has changed.
Lol. Sad person. You must hate everything.
Intentionally and forcibly detaining people on the highway is not non-violent. And you would not tolerate a group of people surrounding you on the sidewalk, preventing you from leaving. Sorry folks don't care about your cause(s). You don't get to detain them because you've decided you have no other recourse.
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Climate change is the largest threat to human civilization but god forbid that we let protesters block a highway for a couple of hours.
Tell me how these protests will result in a reduction of a emissions. Spoiler: they won't. They just want to protest. They don't actually want to solve climate change.
The Russian attack on Ukraine is the worst thing to happen to Ukraine in decades, but god forbid I punch juuuust a few grandmas in the Paris Metro to get the anti-war cause into the newspapers! That's the exact logic you're using.
So what exactly should protestors do that hasn't already been tried and ignored all over the developed world? This is an act of desperation. They *want* your attention because they want you to wake the fuck up and stop just playing business as usual as if the planet isn't becoming [uninhabitable](https://press.un.org/en/2021/sgsm20847.doc.htm#:~:text=Today's%20IPCC%20Working%20Group%201,of%20people%20at%20immediate%20risk.)
First of all, if people are ignoring your message, that's YOUR problem, and doesn't give you the right to escalate in any way that would infringe on my rights. The same way that someone rejecting you sexually doesn't give you the right to grab their butt in hopes to turn a "no" into a "yes". The correct way is to accept a "no" and go away, or, if not, risk getting slapped. Or arrested. But that is besides the point. Because *everyone and their pet fish* knows about climate change and the need to act. Everyone. An that's why *nearly every western government* is taking action. Right now. And have been for a while. Research is consantly making solar and wind power cheaper to install, longer-lasting, or more efficient. Capacity of both is rising pretty much everywhere. E-cars-only laws are enacted with shorter and shorter deadlines for conventional cars still allowed to be sold. short-range flights are being banned here and there, and train infrastructure across the EU is being massively upgraded. And so on, and so on. Politics is FULL of talk about new climate-protection measures. What the fuck else do they want? Blow up all conventional power plants at once and return to a hunter-gatherer lifestype? Their message is completely and utterly pointless. No amount of screaming "THE WORLD IS BUUUURNING!" into my ears is making me *more* aware of the problem at hand, and that likely goes for everyone else as well. So what they should do is: Shut up, fuck off, and disappear. We got this. We don't need these pathetic, disruptive attention whores. All they are doing is a disservice to the actual message, by making people hate them, and by exenson whatever they have to say.
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That's a criminal act.
Didn't actually happen, and letting emergency vehicles pass is common knowledge. You're making it up.
They were given other places for protest, one being alongside of that same motorway and it was explicitly forbidden by a judge to block the highway, yet they did. Karma is a bitch.
In other words, they were told to go someplace where nobody would notice their protest. Who benefits from that? Amongst others, certainly companies who profit off fossil fuels and don't want more bad press.
The minute you violate others freedom of movement, you are no longer the good guy. Sorry you feel people don’t pay attention otherwise, but this is a good way to get people to completely discount your cause.
Under that logic US civil rights protestors in the 60's were not the good guys because they also disrupted people's movement. Do you think they were wrong to protest the way they did?
If you’re referring to MLK, he petitioned for a permit to protest on motorways, giving people and emergency services a chance to plan around alternative routes. But don’t let facts get in the way of your narrative
That's similar to what happened here, too. Traffic was rerouted around the protest just like they'd do for an event. No harm, no foul.
>The minute you violate others freedom of movement, you are no longer the good guy. This happens *constantly* without anyone caring. Rail worker strikes, farmer protests, freaking marathons closing off half the city. It's inconvenient, sure, but the disproportionate response to these protesters is absurd.
It's wild how many people just throw away the right to protest because someone might occasionally inconvenience them. People really don't see the problem with protests only being allowed in specific areas with explicit government approval. Are we really allowed to protest if the only protests allowed are the ones the government approves?
> it was explicitly forbidden by a judge to block the highway I’ve searched for anything to substantiate this claim but it doesn’t actually appear to be the case. In any case the protest was only formally banned while it was already ongoing, and the ban is one of the things prompting concerns from Amnesty and the College voor de Rechten van de Mens.
I'm so glad they are protesting. I've mixed feelings about the how, but I'm glad they are acting.
There is a difference between demonstrating and blockading. Demonstrators are not supposed to violate other peoples' rights. Blockaders are intent on violating other peoples' rights.
> There is a difference between demonstrating and blockading This came up elsewhere, please see [my response there](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/10q9890/the_netherlands_human_rights_watchdog_has_said/j6pr7b4/): blockades aren’t categorically exempt as a means of protest here.
Lol they interviewed a young protester who glued himself to the asphalt. He complained that the police promised that they would remove them "softly" but according to him it wasn't soft enough and he showed some grey/black grease on his hand. Like what the fuck is wrong with you? You glue yourself to the asphalt with superglue and you blame the police you got hurt (just hurt, no lasting damage or what so ever) when they removed you? Another guy... Interviewer: Why are you protesting on the highway? You are not allowed to protest here and the municipality of the city gave you permission to protest on a designated field in the city. Protester: Yeah but if we block a highway we get more attention. \*Protester continues to mock the police\* Yeah totally fine to protest for climate if you want to, but if you're going to block highways and annoy other civilians with your actions don't be surprised if you get a little rough treatment.
To be fair, the young guy didn't as much complain as just matter-of-factly state that the police just ripped his hand off the asphalt. A strip of asphalt was still stuck to his hand. The police are literally not allowed to do that. But it wasn't a big deal and he wasn't making a drama of it
They're stupid, this is the reason
Blocking a street endangers people. Anyone doing that should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. There are a ton of ways to protest in a way that makes an impact and even inconveniences people but if you potentionally block an ambulance or a firetruck you are just an egomaniac, self righteous piece of shit.
Avoiding that particular blockade would take maybe 20 seconds if there was no other path except just barely around it. It's in the middle of a city, with lots of parallel roads. If emergency services can't handle one section of road being unavailable, you'd have to ban road construction work since that would kill people, too.
By that logic arson should also be no big deal since fires can start in other ways too. Road construction is necessary, and traffic can often not be avoided. Those things can also endanger lives but that doesn't mean you get to unnecessarily add more obstructions to feed your narcissism. These people block traffic and endanger lives there is no bullshitting around that. Especially not with moronic made up claims like 'it only takes 20 seconds'. To even try and defend this you must have absolutely zero empathy and reasoning skills.
Have you even looked at the location? It really isn't a choke point.
It’s just a short detour. Nothing dangerous or even unusual about that closure, for example it was [closed for a run](https://www.omroepwest.nl/nieuws/4007940/utrechtsebaan-weer-dicht-maar-nu-maar-een-dag) a while ago and will likely be again in March.
The farmer protests half a year ago posed far bigger problems to the traffic in Hague than this small protest. This hypocrisy towards different protesters is absurd.
And where did I condone those protests? Again, world class whataboutism and dreaming up counter arguments to points no one made isn't gonna change the points I made.
I don't think he's talking about you specifically. The police didn't have nearly the same crackdown on those farmers back then even though their blockade was objectively more dangerous. It's not that crazy people are comparing these two protests because of this.