Why Do We Want to Say No to Peaceful Demonstrations?

The right to hold peaceful demonstrations and public political meetings is a fundamental democratic right enshrined in international human rights’ law. In present-day Ethiopia too, this right has been entrenched both under ‘Art. 30 Sub-Art. (1)’ of the 1995 Constitution of the FDRE and ‘Art. 3. of Proclamation No. 3/1991’, which still remains in effect for lack of a newer and fuller piece of legislation.

The only proclamation on the subject, cited hereof, was officially enacted for the very first time way back in August 1991, in accordance with Art. 1 of the then-Transitional Period Charter, otherwise known as ‘the July Charter’. This was in an attempt to acquaint the procedure for peaceful demonstrations and public political meetings in the country, prior to the adoption of the present constitution.

As elaborated in the preamble, the instructive rationales underpinning the proclamation are the full respect of democratic rights without limitation; protection of the wellbeing of participants in such actions by controlling the potential disturbances to public peace and security; prevention of any harm that might be caused to property in the process, as well as the effective exercise of this democratic right in harmony with the stage of our socio-economic and political development.

The outstanding procedural obligation that the proclamation solely imposes on an individual citizen, group or organisation planning to carry out a peaceful demonstration is serving a written notice of such an intended rally on to the nearby municipality or rural administration 48 hours prior. This should explain the specific objective, passage routes and estimated duration of the demonstration, as well as the identity of the organiser(s) and the type of assistance that might be required from the pertinent government authorities by way of maintaining law and order.

What follows from this is that the municipal or Woreda administrative officials are duty-bound to react within the span of 12 hours from having received the written request, should they agree with the terms of the prior notification.

It has to be reiterated here that no request for the carrying out of peaceful demonstration can, in any way, be denied or refused. The only option available for the public authorities is to negotiate in good faith with the organisers as to the place and timing of its actual occurrence in pursuance of Art. 6. Sub-Art. (2) of the proclamation. Once it has been agreed upon, the prominent role of the police and security officers to be deployed in the streets is simply to watch over the procession and conduct of the protesting masses. This is so that no public peace and security may be threatened by the actions of the protestors to the extent of jeopardising life and property, as stipulated under Art. 10. of the instrument.

On that premise, let me now share with you a local story of my closer connection pertaining to the subject at hand. Gonder is quite a distance from Bahir Dar, the thriving capital of the Amhara Region. While we were rushing to finalise the third national Diaspora Conference, which had to be hosted here in Bahir Dar from July 28 through to July 31 2016 in a relatively welcoming and relaxing atmosphere, the historical city of Gonder was hit by a ground-breaking mass protest involving tens of thousands of people. Though not officially communicated to either the municipal or the North Gonder Zonal Administrative authorities, this huge demonstration was primarily aimed at expressing anger and frustration against the government’s handling of the longstanding Amhara-Tigray border dispute in general, and the Wolqahit-Tsegede complaint in particular.

In an apparent attempt to dismay the government in power, many participants were actually decorated with the defunct Ethiopian national flag consisting of only the green, yellow and red colours. This was in open defiance of the new one, which also includes the star at the centre. In their opinion, the new flag, introduced by the present government, is a divisive instrument instead of a unifying one.

Thanks to the unparalleled wisdom of the local community elders and religious fathers, who from the very outset managed to control the behaviour of the emotionally-charged human waves flooding into the main square from all corners of the city, everybody departed from the gathering in an orderly and disciplined. It was astonishing to witness the demonstration reach its end with a closing prayer and instructive advice from both the Christian and Muslim functionaries at the scene.

Soon after the peaceful demonstrations came to an end, on the evening of July 31, 2016, the Office of the Amhara National Regional Government Communications issued a measured statement regarding the opposition rally. Having formally admitted that the peace-loving residents of Gonder had raised a dozen developmental and good governance issues of high magnitude in a rather peaceful and gentle manner, it promised that the Regional Government will do its level best to tackle them one by one in due course.

On the contrary, however, the human fatalities are increasing by the day amidst the mushrooming of unlawful protests in the name of peaceful demonstrations, casually taking place throughout the nation with little or no organisational backing. Much of the disaster we have come to observe from time to time could have, in my opinion, significantly been reduced had the desired peaceful demonstrations been allowed to take place under the proper management of a defined leadership.

At any rate, why are our local government entities, such as the Municipal and Woreda authorities, always reluctant to allow the carrying out of peaceful demonstrations.

A large portion of Ethiopia is currently being hit hard by a wave of demonstrations of a debilitating scale. Besides this, most of these mass actions appear to go ahead unregulated; sometimes ending up in unprecedented bloodshed. This is exactly what happened in Bahir Dar, wherein several lives were lost on August 6, 2014. As can be witnessed from the ground, the death toll is assumed to have been attributable mainly to the relative lack of proper guidance of the mass demonstration on the part of its hidden organisers and the corresponding zero tolerance of the law-enforcement officials, with the latter reacting against the angry mass of demonstrators with live and excessive gunshots.

In a democratic society, it is unlawful to infringe upon the rights and freedoms of third parties in an irresponsible manner under the shadow of peaceful protests. Furthermore, not all spaces in a defined political jurisdiction are readily available to exercise either peaceful demonstrations or public political meetings irrespective of their characteristics. For instance, Art. 7. of the proclamation provides a list of those places, such as churches, mosques, hospitals and graveyards, which you ought to distance yourselves from by a hundred metres while carrying out such an event. Similarly, not all objectives, good or bad, are allowed to be promoted during peaceful demonstrations. In this respect, it is forbidden to propagate discriminatory, hate-related or ideologically-tainted positions in an open public square without regard to their adverse consequences.

On the other hand, it is equally absurd and even more disturbing to view the shooting down of unarmed young men and women engaged in a rather peaceful rally with live fire at close range.

Why are we, from the very outset, inclined to ban or obstruct public expressions of anger and frustration? As long as they are organised and conducted in a rather peaceful and stable atmosphere, should we not be more accommodating?


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.