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Comment by racktash | Hacker News Reader

There's definitely a balance to be struck between allowing protests to take place and also preventing a minority of protestors disrupting the lives of ordinary people.

For instance – I worked in Belfast while a series of flag protests took place (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belfast_City_Hall_flag_prote...) in 2012. In my view, these protestors had every right to make their views publicly visible and known.

But when they organised "rings of steel" around the city, preventing drivers from coming and going about their business, as they did on a few occasions, they had gone too far.

I don't know the full details of the anti-monarchist arrests, but unless they were planning to disrupt the events, I feel they should not have been arrested.

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And the dividing line of good/bad protests cannot be what they are protesting. It must be based off the level of damage it causes (in its many forms).

This wouldn't be so controversial if people didnt call riots protests.

What a bizarre thing to say. You think the whole monarchist party thing didn't "disrupt" anyone?

I hear what you're saying.

But I would argue that the Cornoation is an important public ceremony / event with every right to go ahead.

It's the same as when a foreign head of state visits and the police cordon off the roads for security.

In my view, this is different to pressure or protest groups disrupting traffic or public events.

If President Biden visits the UK, people should not be able to stop his going about a state visit. But they should be allowed to protest with banners and so on if they so wish.

I'd argue a coronation is just another show. Royalty are a pest, they don't have any important social function; interfering with them should be fine.

Same with presidents and whatnot. They can do their jobs without all that theatre.

Protesting itself is meant to be disruptive though - otherwise what's the point?

You can stand around in a group in a fenced off corner and make some noise and no one will care.

You can annoy people, disrupt a small part of their lives and suddenly they will have an opinion on what you are protesting about, but also an opinion on what protesting should be.

Disruptive protests do eventually change the little part of the world around you, for better or worse.

Quite. A protest is supposed to be disruptive. Disruptions isn't violence.

What next, strikes that you can only do while working?

Perhaps we should only be allowed to criticise government with prior written permission where we detail the criticism and they can veto or censor it? ... oh wait, like marches and protests[1]

[1]: https://www.gov.uk/protests-and-marches-letting-the-police-k...

If a pressure group closed off the main roads into a city in protest of some government policy, is that the kind of disruption that should be tolerated? If yes, where do we draw the line in tiny groups being able to grind the operation of society to a halt?

We draw the line at violence, destruction, direct harm.

Look I get roads being closed is crap, and you could argue that if they don't allow emergency services through then they're doing direct harm.

A protest isn't supposed to be defined, it is outrage expressed. We're supposed to look and listen and think about how a big enough group of people to be disruptive felt the need.

It isn't tolerated, that's the point.

Note: Blocking roads is directly addressed in Section 137 of the Highways Act 1980 which prevents you from ‘wilfully obstructing the free passage along a highway without lawful authority or excuse’. This police power is often used to remove demonstrators who are standing outside buildings, sitting down blockading entrances or roads and in many public order situations.

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