Consider two “mostly peaceful protests,” one right-wing and the other left-wing – the young French nationalists of “Generation Identity,” protesting mass immigration of violent Islamists in France, and the activists behind “Just Stop Oil,” blocking traffic on major roadways in the UK and in Europe.
I am not including obvious examples of state-supported terrorism in this consideration, such as the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020 (joyfully supported by the far-left, including the current Democrat candidate for U.S. president), or such “mostly peaceful protests” as the January 6 riots at the capitol in Washington, DC.
These examples, while indeed “mostly peaceful,” had violent consequences and, in some cases, violent intentions.
The deliberately violent Black Lives Matter riots led to the deaths of at least 17 people and between $1 and $2 billion in damages, resulting from arson, vandalism, and looting in over 2,000 cities and towns across the United States.
However, virtually all of those arrested in these protests, brought before courts in Democrat-controlled jurisdictions and initially charged with minor offenses, were released without charges.
The January 6 or election integrity demonstrations, while also mostly peaceful, led to the death of one protester (Ashley Babbitt), shot in the neck by a trigger-happy capitol policeman named Michael Byrd, and to an estimated $2.7 million in damages to the capitol building and grounds, such as damaged statues, paintings, and furniture. Contrary to what state media later claimed, no police officers died during the J6 protests, although many were injured.
In dramatic contrast to how the BLM rioters were treated, more than 1,000 of the January 6 protesters were charged with serious crimes.
As of today, 366 were sentenced to prison of up to a decade. One, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, was sentenced to 18 years in prison, after being found guilty of “conspiracy” for his role in the Capitol protest.
But I’m not talking about these more extreme examples. I’m interested in genuinely peaceful but disruptive demonstrations.
Are they legitimate? And if not, why not? Are we now going to outlaw political protest completely?
In late July 2024, a court in the UK sentenced Just Stop Oil protesters, including the group’s founder, to between four and five years in prison for a major protest on the M25 motorway in the UK.
The peaceful protesters allegedly caused “more than 50,000 hours of vehicle delay, affecting more than 700,000 vehicles, and left the M25 ‘compromised’ for more than 120 hours.”
Other Just Stop Oil protests have been slightly more violent, mostly symbolic attacks on priceless works of art (such as the Mona Lisa or Stonehenge), although no one was hurt during these protests.
As for the French nationalist organization “Generation Identity” (Génération Identitaire), its actions largely involved displaying large banners on public buildings denouncing mass immigration to Europe and sticking political posters on lampposts.
For these alleged “crimes,” the French government, lacking any real tradition of free speech such as the U.S. First Amendment, didn’t even bother with legal proceedings.
It simply “banned” Generation Identity altogether.
Such acts of overt totalitarianism are becoming a tradition in France.
If you threaten the corporate “center” too much, the French government simply orders the police to shut down your organization by calling it “far right.”
The excuse the government used for suppressing a political organization it disagrees with was that the Generation Identity protesters engaged in “hate speech” against “migrants.”
As in many European countries, in France simply criticizing mass immigration is actually a crime in some circumstances since it can be construed as “inciting” hatred of migrant groups.
For example, the leader of the French political party National Rally, Marine LePen, was herself charged in 2018 by the French government simply for “tweeting” about brutal beheadings by Islamic State fighters.
In France, “violent messages that incite terrorism... or seriously harm human dignity” can be punished by up to three years in prison and a $90,000 fine.
The same tactic of government intimidation has been used recently in both Germany and the UK.
In Germany, the far-left Interior Minister Nancy Faeser – who used to write for a magazine associated with the terrorist organization Antifa – “banned” the right-wing magazine Compact and the company that publishes it, Compact-Magazin GmbH, as well as a film production company, Conspect Film.
In a raid not seen in Germany since the days of the Communist Stasi, German police raided the home of the magazine’s founder, Jürgen Elsässer.
German officials are also seriously considering a similar “ban” against the political organization Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Similarly, in the UK, a peaceful protester named Sam Melia, a cofounder of the political organization Patriotic Alternative, was recently found guilty of producing political stickers used on lampposts.
He wasn’t accused of ever being violent, only of making stickers with racially charged messages, such as, “It’s okay to be white.”
The judge in the case, Tom Bayliss, sentenced Melia to two years in prison and denied him access to his children essentially for a “thought crime,” that is, for embracing a nationalist ideology the judge dislikes.
"The publication of this kind of material is corrosive to our society," the judge explained, thereby admitting that Melia was guilty of thinking wrong thoughts.
Even some media organizations declared Bayliss’s decision “tyrannical” and a violation of international standards of human rights.
Human rights groups have also noted the disparity between how non-violent conservative groups in Europe are treated versus how violent migrants and left-wing groups are treated.
For example, while Sam Melia was sentenced to two years in prison, violent Islamic criminals are sometimes released without jail time at all.
Abdul Ezedi, an illegal immigrant from Afghanistan who carried out a brutal acid attack on a mother and her children in the UK, was previously found guilty of sexual assault but never served a day in jail.
Thus, the perception is growing among many that western societies have created a two-tier system of justice -- one in which some political groups are punished severely, even if nonviolent, while other groups escape justice altogether.
In other words: there is one law for the political class and organizations it likes... and another law for everyone else.
That is why the lengthy prison sentences doled out to Just Stop Oil protesters are not something to cheer, even though many rightfully decry their ideology.
Such sentences are another sign that the government class will do whatever it takes to silence opposition, whether from the political left or the right.
We are entering a new era in which many political demonstrations, and even many political parties, will be outlawed.
This is the era of totalitarian democracy in which citizens must embrace what the government class decrees – or else.
Robert J. Hutchinson writes about ideas and current affairs at www.DisputedQuestions.com. He is the author of Searching for Jesus: New Discoveries in the Quest for Jesus of Nazareth.
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