Political demonstration

Demonstrations can promote a viewpoint (either positive or negative) regarding a public issue, especially relating to a perceived grievance or social injustice.

However, the reasons for avoiding the use of violence may also derive, not from a general doctrine of nonviolence or pacifism, but from considerations relating to the particular situation that is faced, including its legal, cultural and power-political dimensions: this has been the case in many campaigns of civil resistance.

Activist trainer Daniel Hunter describes this term as covering "actions that force the target to either let you do what you want, or be shown as unreasonable as they stop you from doing it".

[11] A study by Srdja Popovic and Sophia McClennen won the 2020 Brown Democracy Medal for its examination of 44 examples of dilemma demonstrations and the ways in which they were used to achieve goals within civil resistance campaigns.

[citation needed] Police and military authorities often use non-lethal force or less-lethal weapons, such as tasers, rubber bullets, pepper spray, and tear gas against demonstrators in these situations.

As a known tool to prevent the infiltration by agents provocateurs,[13] the organizers of large or controversial assemblies may deploy and coordinate demonstration marshals, also called stewards.

However, there are a number of limitations placed on demonstrations and protest under state, territory and federal legislation, with forty-nine laws introduced regarding them since 2004.

31 of the Constitution adopted in 1993: Citizens of the Russian Federation shall have the right to gather peacefully, without weapons, and to hold meetings, rallies, demonstrations, marches and pickets.

If the assembly in public is expected to involve more than one participant, its organisers are obliged to notify executive or local self-government authorities of the upcoming event few days in advance in writing.

However, legislation does not foresee an authorisation procedure, hence the authorities have no right to prohibit an assembly or change its place unless it threatens the security of participants or is planned to take place near hazardous facilities, important railways, viaducts, pipelines, high voltage electric power lines, prisons, courts, presidential residences or in the border control zone.

Previously, these were military bases and nuclear power stations, but the law changed in 2007 to include other, generally political areas, such as Downing Street, the Palace of Westminster, and the headquarters of MI5 and MI6.

Nick Clegg, the then Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "I am not aware of vast troops of trespassers wanting to invade MI5 or MI6, still less running the gauntlet of security checks in Whitehall and Westminster to make a point.

"Amendment I: Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

[23] Another common tactic is to infiltrate legitimate demonstrations in the attempt to stir widespread violence and rioting, seen most recently in a spring anti-Iraq war gathering in Vancouver, Canada.