Il diritto alla protesta è sotto continuo attacco in Occidente, rileva il rapporto

The right to protest has come under sustained attack in the west, according to a report highlighting the growing criminalisation of pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

The study by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) pays particular attention to the UK, the US, France and Germany, where it says governments have “weaponised” counter-terrorism legislation as well as the fight against antisemitism to suppress dissent and support for Palestinian rights in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

“This trend reflects a worrying shift towards the normalisation of exceptional measures in dealing with dissenting voices,” said Yosra Frawes, the head of the Maghreb and Middle East desk at FIDH.

The report, which draws on open-source research, first-hand testimonies and reports from international bodies, comes a day after a US-sponsored plan led to a ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all living Israeli hostages and thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

The research, which was conducted between October 2023 and September 2025, also raises questions over the censorship of public office holders, violations against journalists, civil society and academic freedom in the UK, France, Germany and the US.

“The right to protest has come under sustained attack from the British government across administrations and party lines,” says the report, which highlights government policies such as the anti-protest legislation put forward by the Conservative government in 2024 later found as unlawful, and a Labour government it claims “pushed to legitimise Israel’s genocidal violence” and “continued to justify support for Israel”.

>highlighting the growing criminalisation of pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

Supporting Palestine isn’t illegal, you just can’t support that one pro-Palestine organisation that has a tendency to engage in organised crime and terrorism/terrorist adjacent activities. It’s not a particularly big ask.

There’s also the thing that protest is a qualified right that is subject to conditions (as per the HRA), and ultimately does not entitle you to break the law whenever you feel like it. Blocking key infrastructure, causing damage and causing mass disruption isn’t suddenly ok because you’re doing it for a protest:

>No restrictions shall be placed on the exercise of these rights __other than such as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.__

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/schedule/1/part/I/chapter/10

Emphasis mine.

Pardon my ignorance but what is stopping these so called pro Palestinian protestors from just supporting Palestine and not specifically Palestine Action?

The right to protest is a universal right that applies to all legal ideologies equally. If Just Stop Oil have “right” to impede roads week after week then everyone does, including anti immigration or anti LGBT groups.

If you believe that how much of an impendence a protest can be is defined by how closely it aligns with your ideology then you do not believe its a right we all share, but a privilege you have.

Secondly all rights are balanced, certain groups seem to think their “rights” are the only rights that people enjoy, so people do not have a right to go about their days unmolested or freely. If their group wants everyone to pay attention to them, then the rights of people who do not want to pay attention are to be discarded as those people MUST be impeded to enforce their attention.

Protest is about expressing an opinion within a democratic society in order to change minds, it is not a “right” to make everything about yourself irrespective of other people not giving a toss about your group.

We have done this with abortion, “strangely” or actually not, this is not cited as something the human rights groups are angry about, we prevent repetitive protests outside abortion clinics. A right to express an opinion is not a right to harass, it is not a right to damage property, it is not a right to an unlimited amount of repetitive interference with the public.

If you cannot express the problems with rights in terms of groups you strongly disagree with, then it is merely rebranding desired privileges as rights.