Challenges faced by groups most at risk when exercising or seeking to exercise the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and/or of association 2014, para. 45
Paragraph
Paragraph text
Surveillance tactics ostensibly designed to prevent criminal activity are also often used selectively to target certain groups who plan to stage peaceful public assemblies. In Canada, for example, the Government formed a special police unit to produce intelligence updates on potential protests by indigenous peoples, primarily those fighting outside development on their ancestral land. Similarly, disproportionate force (including armed police, snipers and roadblocks) is often deployed at disfavoured protests as an intimidation tactic. Such practices should be vigorously discouraged. As the Special Rapporteur has previously noted, public assemblies should be presumed to be peaceful and lawful, until proven otherwise (A/HRC/20/27, para. 25) Surveillance tactics and disproportionate shows of force attest that authorities in some Member States often presume the opposite, and have a chilling effect on peaceful protestors, such as in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (A/HRC/23/39/Add.1, para. 32).
Legal status
Non-negotiated soft law
Body
Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association
Document type
Special Procedures' report
Means of adoption
N.A.
Topic(s)
Humanitarian
Person(s) affected
Ethnic minorities
Year
2014
Paragraph type
Other
Reference
SR Freedom of Assembly, Report to the HRC (2014), A/HRC/26/29, para. 45.