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United Nations Human Rights

Council
BCNMUN 2021

Global Safety: Taking Action Against Underlying Threats in order

to Preserve a Sustainable Future for all Global Citizens.
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Topic: Tackling the issue of police brutality in peaceful protests.

Chair: Nastia Kravtcova

Position: President

Introduction

Police brutality in political protests is an issue of high levels of controversy. The clashes

between governmental policies and the public opinion expressed in protest have led to the

creation of change. Political protest has been, since the years of the Suffragist movement

for women’s rights, to the Civil rights movement, a motivating force for change in times

when governments were not willing to create it. This unwillingness is what sparked what

came to be known as police brutality, or the mistreatment of protestors. Police brutality is

defined as the police taking brutal action against the protestors such as beating, arbitrary

arrest and verbal abuse. The reasons for brutal actions on the behalf of the police however

are mostly caused by the government's inability to accept the reasons for the protests,

rather than the violent actions of the protestors. Thus, more restrictive and authoritarian

countries are more likely culprits of police brutality in peaceful protests. While historically

police brutality has been observed in all nations, authoritarian states are more likely to

cover up abuse of the protestors or even outlawing peaceful protest all together. As well as

this, a big part of the issue is online freedom and the governmental surveillance of the

internet to block the organization of peaceful protests.

The inability of the citizens to directly create change in the nation, causes them to resort to

protest as a way to attract attention to the pressing issue. With the modern

interconnectedness of the world, news of protest reaches from one place to another in a

matter of seconds on the internet, protest thus becoming a powerful tool of letting the

world know that the government is mistreating a population. The United Nations has

always had a positive view on protest, as quoting a member of the monitor panel of the UN

Human Right Committee Cristof Heyns, protest is a “fundamental human right for people
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to gather”. However, the UN does not have clear guidelines on what differentiates peaceful

versus violent protests, which causes nations to create their own legislature which can

result in cases of police brutality. Peaceful protest is often wrongly associated with civil

disobedience, as while it means being uncollaborative with the state, peaceful protest does

presume violence or looting. However often this type of protest spills over into violence,

caused by a sense of helplessness of the protestors and lack of protection of the right to

peaceful protesting. As well as this, heavy handed policing has often been highlighted as

cause of protests turning violent, as the more peacefully collaborative the police are, the

less likely the protest is to get out of order. The issue of police brutality is strikingly current,

with this year’s international protests of the Black Lives Matter movement, prompted by

the murder of George Floyd, as well as the protest in Honk Kong, in which protestors rose

up against forced reforms by the Chinese government. The issue at hand is one that has

not only occurred historically, but one that persists today.

Definition of Key Terms

◆ Protest

The statement or action of objection to something, political protest can manifest in

multiple forms, as today, while classic methods of protesting, such as a march or a picket

still apply, people can also protest through social media.

◆ Police forces

An organized body of police officers, which work in a particular area or district.

◆ Looting

Looting means stealing in times of protest disorder, usually meaning that large content’s of

the store’s products are taken away.

◆ Tear Gas

A chemical substance also known as lachrymator, which causes respiratory irritation and

eye ache, this chemical is often used by police to control protests

◆ Universal Declaration of Human Rights

A key UN document which outlines the rights such as the right to free speech, freedom of

assembly and association, thus protecting the right to peaceful protest.

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◆ Video Evidence

One of the key ways that police brutality has been recorded in the recent years has been

the usage of video footage, which proves the cases of police brutality observed.

◆ Dash Cameras

A type of cameras attached to one’s body which have been used in order to control and

reduce police brutality through the recording of the police actions.

Background Information
Political protest has historically been one of the key ways that groups have demanded

change from the government, however in line with this, police brutality has also existed in

all protests. While protest does not always directly lead to achieving political goals, it has

always raised awareness about the issue. In order to give background to the topic, it is

essential to assess several cases of political protest and police brutality in the recent years.

While these cases are not the only ones that have occurred, they represent several cases of

different reasons for protesting and how that changes the governmental responses as to

how to deal with violence in protest. It is clear that protests that have to do with policies of

the government, such as economically or ecologically motivated protests, are generally less

violent than the protests that have to do with protesting against the government directly,

such as anti-corruption protests, or ones that question the democratic principles of the

said government.

The first protest which will be assessed will be the Extinction Rebellion Protests which had

occurred in London in the fall of 2019. The protests created by the Extinction Rebellion

group established in 2018 to use peaceful civil disobedience to create change in the United

Kingdom’s national policy on climate change. The key demands of the protesting group are

to declare a climate “emergency”, to create binding agreements to get carbon emissions

within the United Kingdom to a net zero by 2025, as well as to form a civilian assembly to

oversee the governmental action on climate change commitments (BBC). However, while
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the protests were largely carried out with peaceful methods, such as blocking of roads,

camping sit ins and workers choosing to go on strike off work to support the cause, they

caused a large backlash from the British public, as they caused great damage to the

functioning of the city. Eventually the protests intensified and a damage of six thousand

pounds was done to the Shell Company office in Central London by the activists who

participated. This violence caused the police action to intensify. According to The Guardian,

there have been 521 cases of accusations of abuse of power on the behalf of the police.

Accusations were particularly connected with arbitrary arrests of the protestors as over the

course of 2 weeks about 1,700 protestors were arrested. Degrading and humiliating

treatment of the disabled protestors had been reported, as well as sexual harassment of

several female protestors and physical violence towards them. While the protest, as in the

case of most, did evolve into partial looting and creation of discomfort within the British

capital, the unessential police brutality towards the protestors is an issue that needs to be

dealt with. This represents that although police brutality is of especial likelihood in protests

motivated by other causes, environmental protests are beginning to be taken more

seriously” by governments as more police force is deployed, within control measures. On

the other hand is an example of human rights motivated protests of the Black Lives Matter

movement that have occurred in the United States in the May and June of 2020.

While the protests had occurred worldwide, some of the worst cases of police brutality

related to the protests happened in the US where the protests were also at their most

intense, considering the history of the civil rights movement. The Black Lives Matter

movement began in 2013 in order to protect and highlight the necessity of the importance

of the lives of African Americans in the United States. Although over the course of its

existence there have been numerous protests prompted by the movement, they cannot be

scaled with the protests prompted by the murder of George Floyd, an African American

man who had been strangled by a police officer on camera. The death began a wave of

protests across the US, in disregard of the dire situation of the coronavirus pandemic and

led to many clashes between the protestors and the police. Called one of the biggest

protest movements in US history by the New York Times, the Black Lives Matter protests

have been some of the most varied in terms of the social groups participating as more of
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the protestors had been from wealthier groups as well as white Americans. About 80% of

the demonstrations have been peaceful, however, that did not reduce the amount of police

brutality and action during the protests. One of the main reasons due to which the protests

became violent, was the excessive looting, which occurred in many cities where the

protests were taking place (New York Times). The looters generally represent a part of the

protestors much smaller than the peaceful ones and according to the sociologist Andrea S.

Boyles, typical are of a lower economic class which by looting tends to target the stores

which they cannot purchase from. However small the looter group though, looters often

become the breaking point of when a protest is no longer seen as peaceful. The protests

motivated by stopping police brutality have, according to Amnesty International, prompted

ver high levels of police brutality against the protestors, specifically the excessive use of

tear gas and pepper spray, unnecessary use of rubber bullets and sponge rounds. There

has also been particular violence against the protestors recording the police actions, one of

the main ways to count police accountable for excessive brutality. The BLM protests

represent the way levels of police brutality vary according to the issue of protest, as when

compared with the Extinction Rebellion protests, the amount of police brutality was much

higher.

Finally a third case of protesting that has occurred in the past year, were the democratic

protests in Hong Kong, which have been caused by the rising control of the Chinese

government over the area which had in the past been a British colony. The protests which

began in June 2019 were largely motivated by possible adaptation of the extradition law,

which would allow criminals from Honk Kong to be extradited to mainland China, where

they could be subject to cruel and degrading treatment. A wave of protests erupted right

away and continued even after the bill had been removed by the Hong Kong executive

Carrie Lam, as the protestants feared that the shelving of the bill would not mean its total

removal from the agenda. Major clashes between the protestors and the police had

occurred throughout the times of protest, however some of the key cases of such were the

shooting of the 18 year old student Tsang Chi-kin, which caused a major media outlash,

bewildered by the brutality of the police. While the police had commented that he was shot

in self protection, the case represented the close tie between how the cause of protest and

the police response relate. As the protests began to call for more accountability and
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democractic change, the measures taken also became more drastic. Governmental

response to political protest can thus be represented as some of the harshest, and the one

where most brutality is observed.

Major Countries and Organisations Involved

◆ France

France is a key nation in the debate about police brutality, considering its recent history

with the “Yellow Vests” movement, prompted by the lower and middle class’s disapproval

of Emmanuel Macron’s economic policies adapted in 2018. The protests involved high

levels of police brutality against the protestors, with cases of loss of limbs having been

common.

◆ UK

The United Kingdom is related to the topic due to the previously explained extinction

rebellion protests in the background section. Another recent case of police brutality within

the UK had been during the British extensions of the BLM protests, but also the clashes

between the BLM activists, the police and the far right protestors who rallied in London as

well. (BBC)

◆ Russia

Russian Federation is a key figure in the debate due to the high levels of police brutality

which have occurred during the anti-government protests as well as the anti-corruption

protests in the past years. Specifically the protests in the Summer of 2019 in Moscow had

raised a lot of questions as the police had been seen calling out the protestors for

committing a crime, while the protests had been authorized and had largely been peaceful.

◆ China

China is well connected with the issue due to the mainland Chinese government being

highly involved with the police actions taken in Hong Kong. As well as this, while there are

heavy restrictions surrounding freedom of speech and association and China, there has

been a history of pro-democarctic protest in the authoritarian state. One of the key

historical protests, the Tiananmen Square protests, one of the most horrific examples of
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police brutality, when thousands of pro-democracy protestors were massacred in central

Beijing.

◆ United States

The United States are a key figure in the topic at hand, firstly due to the fact that while it is

one of the countries with the best protected rights to protest and protest having a lot of

historical significance within the US, large amounts of police brutality have been observed

during the BLM protests nationwide protests in 2020.

◆ Belarus

The Eastern European nation is related with the topic of police brutality due to the

excessive levels of police involvement in the July 2020 protests, which had been prompted

by the removal of the independent and opposition candidates from the presidential race,

as the current president Alexander Lukashenko aims to run for a sixth consecutive

presidential term. More than 200 protestors had been arrested by the Belarussian police

over the course of one night and beatings of the protestors had been observed. (Amnesty

International).

◆ Lebanon

Lebanon is largely related to the issue due to the ongoing protests across the country

caused by the economic crisis worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. The government’s

inability to handle the economic problems had caused the people of the capital Beirut, and

those in other large cities to protest. The police had used rubber bullets and tear gas

against the protestors. Human Rights Watch has highlighted the targeting of peaceful

protestors and representatives of the media who were beat up and violently arrested.

◆ Gabon

The African nation is pertinent to the issue as the post-presidential elections in 2016 had

caused polemic in the media due to the high levels of police brutality. The protests, which

were prompted by the dictator, Ali Bongo, closely winning the presidential election in what

was seen as a staged victory against the national candidate. The protests which began

peacefully, escalated to looting and brutal action on behalf of the police, raising the already

high tensions caused by the unfair election.

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◆ Iraq

Iraq has observed high levels of police brutality in the fall of 2019 protests, prompted by

the prime minister’s forced resignation of the counter-terrorism chief in Iraq who was

greatly popular within the population. The protestors went on to focus on the general

levels of rigidness of the political system in Iraq. With the protestors largely being under 30,

the march in Baghdad caused the police to open fire directly on the protestors in a grave

violation of the right to expression and association.

◆ Venezuela

The OHRC of the UN has on multiple occasions commented on the amounts of deaths of

civilians caused by the actions of the police during the political protests in Venezuela over

the course of the governmental crisis that has been going on for several years. There have

been 15,885 dead on behalf of the state security forces. The protests in Venezuela, caused

by the clashes between the state controlled police and the general public, which does not

support the “elected” president Nicolas Maduro and instead supports the leader of the

opposition, Juan Guaido, who has previously self declared himself as the president.

◆ Brazil

Brazil has also suffered from high levels of police brutality during the recent pro-

democratic protests against the current president Jair Bolsano, organized through

Facebook by groups fighting against facism. Bolsano has shared negative views of the

protestors, calling them "outcasts, delinquents, and addicts” (DW), and saying that security

forces will be involved. Considering the levels of police brutality in Brazil which have been

recognized by the Human Rights Watch, attacks on the protestors were observed during

the protests.

Timeline of Events

Date Description of event

July 14, 1789 Storming of the Bastille, While this event

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was not a protest directly, the storming of

the Bastille by the civilians was motivated
by the wish to seek change in France of the
day, but was met with violence and
shooting on the behalf of the soldiers.

March 12-April 30 1930 Ghandi’s Salt March is a key event in the

history of peaceful protest. The March
which was organized by Mohamdas Ghandi
as a way to rebel against the British taxes
on salt production, as well as to support
the Indian movement towards
independence began as just Ghandi and his
close followers and expanded to many
more followers. After the march ended,
Gandhi was actually arrested, which could
be categorized as a case of police brutality.

26 June 1952 The Defiance Campaign in South Africa

were a series of protests enacted against
the apartheid and segregation in South
Africa. While the protests were largely
peaceful, many of the participants were
imprisoned or fined, as well as this, many
were fired at. The movement served as an
inspiration for the Civil Rights movement in
the US.

August 1963 The March on Washington was a major

series of protests which occurred in August
of 1963 in Washington D.C. The protests
attracted more than 250 thousand
participants who demanded to eliminate
the challenges and inequalities faced by
African Americans in the US. The protest
was an example of one with little police
brutality as it was partially endorsed by J.F.
Kennedy, the president at the time.

May 1989 Tiananmen Square was a series of

massive protests in Beijing, China, when
nearly a million Chinese who were mostly
young students, marched for bringing
democracy to China and forcing the
resignation of the oppressive leaders of the
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communist party. The protests were largely

recorded by Western Media, when on June
4th the security and police forces stormed
into Tiananmen Square, firing at the
protestors. By estimates possibly more
than a thousand perished due to the police
brutality, while almost ten thousand were
arrested.

February 2014 The 2014 Ukrainian Revolution

collectivizes the violent civil disobedience
which occurred in the Ukrainian capital Kiev
in 2014, when the president Victor
Yanukovich was ousted from power.
Violent riots occurred due to the amounts
of police brutality, enacted as the police
was still controlled by the unpopular
leader.

Relevant UN Treaties and Resolutions

◆ United Nations Human RIghts Charter

The UNHRC, which is one of the pillars of the UN customary laws and specifically of the

Human Rights council,has a clause on right to participate in the government of the nation,

as well as freedom of association, expression and assembly, virtually protecting the right to

civil peaceful protest.

◆ A/RES/38/HRC The promotion and protection of human rights in the

context of peaceful protests

The resolution directly focuses on the ways how human rights of the protestors need to be

protected in cases of peaceful protests.

◆ A/HRC/31/L.28 Protecting human rights defenders addressing economic,

social and cultural rights

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This resolution particularly focuses on the protection of the protestors who defend the

causes outlined in the declaration of human rights. The types of protection addressed

could be more generally applied to all protestors.

◆ A/HRC/43/L.50 The promotion and protection of the human rights and

fundamental freedoms of Africans and of people of African descent

against police brutality and other violations of human rights

This recent resolution adopted on June 20th 2020 referenced the need to prevent police

brutality as a whole. However, the resolution has also sparked debate due to the fact that

the U.S is not mentioned as a culprit of police brutality.

Previous Attempts to solve the Issue

The UN has historically supported and protected the right to protest, however, it is

difficult for the UN to create common international legislation, due to the fact that

some countries already have more authoritarian governments, which will abuse the

right to protest even if it would be against international treaties. The borderline

between what is peaceful and what is violent protest is also fine one, creating

questions as to when the police should get involved with the protests and to what

degree. The fact that different types of protests generally are more likely to escalate

to violence means that in order to solve the issue particular rules would have to be

imposed on different types of protest.

Possible Solutions
Although as discussed throughout the report, the issue of police brutality in

peaceful protests is one with many matrices and caveats, there are several possibilities for

the solution of this issue in the case of governmental international cooperation. One of the

starting points for this could be the creation of a cohesive way to categorize amd rank a

protest as peaceful or violent, in order to ensure that police action is only used in cases

when needed and when the protest is clearly out of hand of the authorities. This scaling

could be based on the factor of the levels of participation as well as clashes between the

protestors themselves, as well as how dangerous the protestors are to common citizens.
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Another facet could be the creation of more detailed approaches to police training in

behaving during protests, especially towards disables participants, as well as a code of

conduct to avoid sexual violence. Steps have to be taken for no group to be targeted at

protests. However one of the most important ways to resolve the issue of police brutality,

would be the international reinforcement of the legality of peaceful protest in general,

suggesting and proposing the need for creating laws on freedom of expression of opinion

in gathering. Finally, a possible area of the subject which should be treated would be the

role of the governmental officials in organizing protests, and the encouragement of the

government’s collaboration with the people and the right to protest, instead of against it,

which could also impact the levels of police brutality to a large extent.

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