Authorities clamp down on the right to protest

As pro-Palestine marches gather pace, many nations are banning events - with little protection from EU laws

- Daniel Boffey

In the first weeks that followed 7 October, when Hamas's killing of 1,400 people in Israel triggered war with Israel, about a quarter of the pro-Palestine marches registered with the authorities in Germany's main cities were banned. According to the magazine Der Spiegel, 90% of those that went ahead had conditions imposed upon them.

In France, it took the intervention of the highest administrative court to stymie a plan by that country's interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, to prohibit all protests organised by those calling for a ceasefire. Since then, local prefects are making an assessment on a case-by-case basis.

Elsewhere in Europe, protests have been prohibited in countries including Austria, Switzerland and Hungary, while a row in the UK over a pro-Palestine march in London on Armistice Day led to a rupture between Downing Street and the Metropolitan police.

The response of Amnesty International has been to remind national governments that they "have a legal obligation to ensure that people are able to peacefully express their grief, concerns and their solidarity".

It is argued by some that the past few weeks have highlighted the fragility of the ecosystem of national laws and supranational rights relating to the European tradition of protest.

"Technically, there's no right to protest per se that's protected by an article in the European convention on human rights," said Richard Martin, an assistant professor of law at the London School of Economics. "So it's a combination of freedom of expression, and freedom of assembly across articles 10 and 11 that are doing the work. But crucially, they're qualified rights.