{"id":6273,"date":"2021-01-08T13:06:39","date_gmt":"2021-01-08T13:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=147712"},"modified":"2021-01-08T13:06:39","modified_gmt":"2021-01-08T13:06:39","slug":"civil-society-groups-warn-against-anti-protest-legislation-following-siege-of-us-capital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/08\/civil-society-groups-warn-against-anti-protest-legislation-following-siege-of-us-capital\/","title":{"rendered":"Civil Society Groups Warn Against Anti-Protest Legislation Following Siege of US Capital"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hours after Confederate flag-toting white supremacists made their way into the U.S. Capitol to disrupt the certification of the U.S. presidential election, the Florida House of Representatives released a statement<\/a> announcing its intention to pass a bill to clamp down on protests.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn response to the violent mobs in Washington, D.C., the Florida House of Representatives and Senate filed identical bills to combat violence, disorder and looting in Florida,\u201d the release reads.<\/p>\n

“While we condemn these crimes against democracy, such antics cannot be used to justify new repressive measures against actual protests, restrictions of the right of peaceful assembly, or curtailment of speech.”
\u2014Chip Gibbons, Defending Rights and Dissent<\/span><\/p>\n

The proposed<\/a> legislation<\/a> in Florida is a continuation of a national trend to attempt to criminalize Black Lives Matter, indigenous and other civil rights protest movements. The proposed Florida legislation aims to punish municipalities that reduce funding to police departments, protect Confederate monuments, legalize forms of vigilante violence against protesters, and heighten \u201criot\u201d charges. Democratic State Rep. Omari Hardy called<\/a> it \u201cbad legislation that is fundamentally un-American,\u201d and \u201cunconstitutional.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across the nation, dozens of sister anti-protest bills have been passed and proposed<\/a> over the past few years, many at the behest of law enforcement lobbies and unions<\/a> and influential corporate lobbies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The proposed Florida bills are not alone. <\/p>\n

A bill to criminalize anti-pipeline demonstrations is awaiting Ohio Governor Mike DeWine\u2019s signature (SB33). Others, to legalize violence against protesters, further criminalize, or punish protesting, are alive in Missouri (SB 26, SB 66, HB56), New Jersey (S 3261, A 4991, AB 3760), Oklahoma (SB 15), South Carolina (HB 3491), Virginia (SB 5079, SB 5058, SB 5074), according to the International Center for Not-For-Profit Law<\/a>, as well as in Nebraska<\/a>, Texas<\/a> and Utah<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Weaponizing the siege of the U.S. Capitol<\/strong><\/p>\n

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When news broke of the white supremacists breaching the U.S. Capitol, multiple news outlets<\/a> repeated<\/a> statements labeling the mob as \u201canarchists,\u201d echoing White House efforts<\/a> to target \u201cAntifa.\u201d<\/p>\n

This type of weaponization of the day\u2019s events to justify efforts to clamp down on protests is raising concerns among civil society groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to make sure this moment is not used to further anti-protest legislation,\u201d says Justin Hansford, Founder and Director of Harvard University\u2019s Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center.<\/p>\n

The events on December 6 showcased preferential treatment by law enforcement for white supremacist groups. \u201cThe tanks, batons, and tear gas rounds aggressively used against BLM protesters this summer were conspicuously absent when these white supremacists stormed the capitol building,\u201d says Hansford. \u201cAt the end of the day, for many people around the world, this incident punctuated not only the delusion of President Trump’s supporters but more enduringly, the fundamentally racially tinged nature of police response to public assemblies.”<\/p>\n

This preferential treatment, also condemed by the National Lawyers Guild<\/a>, is further proof that any new efforts to strengthen the power law enforcement to clamp down on dissent\u2014such as through domestic terrorism legislation\u2014is \u201cwithout basis,” says Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director, Partnership for Civil Justice Fund<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis violent mob was allowed to storm the Capitol,\u201d says Verheyden-Hilliard. \u201cThe differential treatment that they received, and as compared to the brutal attacks on actual First Amendment protected activity of the racial justice movement, is stunning. Capitol police have all the weapons, tactics and personnel at their disposal but they made an obvious decision not to deploy them. The last thing we need is to allow this right-wing attack on the Capitol to become a vehicle to give police more tools to clamp down on the progressive, peaceful social justice movement.\u201d (The DC Police purchased<\/a> over $130,000 worth of tear gas just before the November 2020 election and turned down<\/a> offers from the Pentagon for backup.)<\/p>\n

Chip Gibbons, Policy Director for Defending Rights and Dissent agrees. \u201cWhile we condemn these crimes against democracy, such antics cannot be used to justify new repressive measures against actual protests, restrictions of the right of peaceful assembly, or curtailment of speech,\u201d said Gibbons in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Groups including Partnership for Civil Justice Fund<\/a>, Center for Protest Law and Litigation<\/a>, Defending Rights & Dissent<\/a> and Justice for Muslims Collective<\/a> are demanding probes into the federal and local police planning and response to Wednesday\u2019s events.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hours after Confederate flag-toting white supremacists made their way into the U.S. Capitol to disrupt the certification of the U.S. presidential election, the Florida House of Representatives released\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6274,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6273\/revisions\/6274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}