Protest is in Index’s DNA. We were founded following calls for help from Russian intellectuals Pavel and Ivy Litvinov and Larisa Bogoraz – people who faced constant persecution for their roles in the democratic movement in the Soviet Union – so from the outset we’ve stood with those who’ve taken their fight for free expression to the streets. Given our history, in 2018 we dedicated an issue of the magazine to the anniversary of the 1968 global protests and examined the state of protest rights 50 years on. We noted that “the right to protest is under threat in democracies as well as authoritarian states”.
Looking back at that issue seven years later feels very bittersweet. The biggest threat we observed then to protest rights in the UK was the privatisation of urban spaces. As for the USA, there was nothing too alarming during Donald Trump’s first term. Instead Micah White, one of the co-founders of Occupy Wall Street, wrote about how protest was failing and why we needed new forms of activism.
Today it’s almost impossible to keep track of stories concerning threats to protest rights in both countries. Take Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, for example, who has now been in detention for more than a week without any charges issued. Due process has been torn to shreds in an attempt to intimidate and silence others.
Or take the Greenpeace case in North Dakota, where a jury on Wednesday decided that the global climate campaign group must pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to the oil and gas company Energy Transfer for its role in protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Greenpeace argues that this lawsuit is an attack on the right to protest, a sentiment echoed by constitutional experts (and indeed, us).
In the UK, protest legislation passed by the last government has led to arrests and long prison sentences for several individuals. Two weeks ago, a judge reduced some of these sentences, calling them “manifestly excessive”, but the reduction did little to change the message – be careful what you protest against, and where you do it.
Even in our courtrooms, activists face pressure to abandon their political beliefs in order to avoid harsher punishments. A recent study highlighted this trend and called for it to end.
This is far from the full picture, and while it’s true that many of us can still protest, the right is now far from universally applied. This must concern us all. A good response to this, nay the only response, is to keep talking about these threats, and also to keep protesting, which is exactly what we’ll do tomorrow, 25 March 2025. In true Index fashion, we’re heading to the Belarus Embassy in London to protest Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s clampdown on, well, protest. Join us while you still can.
