The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland (January, 2003) triggered anti-globalization protests across Switzerland. Access to the town of Davos was blocked by the police of Grisons, with reinforcements from other cantons, and even Austrian police, which was unprecedented. On Saturday January 25, the day scheduled for a protest march in Davos, only selected protesters were allowed to pass.
In the afternoon, some of the protesters that were turned away outside Davos travelled to Bern, where the demonstrations quickly degenerated into full-scale riots, with thirty arrested and three policemen injured. The police prevented the protesters from entering the historical center of the city. The director of the Bernese police, Kurt Wasserfallen, referred to the events as "terrorism".
Meanwhile, the protesters who were allowed to enter Davos demonstrated peacefully, securely cordoned off from the WEF participants. One group appeared in monkey costumes, wearing masks of various world leaders, 'adoring' a golden calf that they carried around with them. Between bursts of adoration, they bashed an inflatable globe with plastic clubs. Osama bin Laden was portrayed as raping the planet in unison with George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld.
In a picture of the protests, a protester wearing a mask of Donald Rumsfeld and a yellow, six-pointed cardboard "sheriff" badge is portrayed carrying the golden calf, and next to him, another protester impersonating Ariel Sharon is wielding a plastic club. The Rumsfeld character's badge was misinterpreted as alluding to the Star of David, or even to Nazi concentration camp badges, an interpretation that arose because low-resolution versions of the image were circulated in news reports, where the "sheriff" text on the star was not legible.
Jamil Abdullah al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, is a human rights activist, Muslim Cleric, Islamic separatist, and convicted murderer who was the fifth chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s. During a short-lived alliance between SNCC and the Black Panther Party, he served as their minister of justice.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation for multinational companies based in Cologny, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer Klaus Schwab. The foundation, which is mostly funded by its 1,000 member companies – typically global enterprises with more than US$5 billion in turnover – as well as public subsidies, views its own mission as "improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas".
A black bloc is a tactic used by protesters who wear black clothing, ski masks, scarves, sunglasses, motorcycle helmets with padding or other face-concealing and face-protecting items. The clothing is used to conceal wearers' identities and hinder criminal prosecution by making it difficult to distinguish between participants. It is also used to protect their faces and eyes from pepper spray, which is used by police during protests or civil unrest. The tactic also allows the group to appear as one large unified mass. Black bloc participants are often associated with anarchism, anarcho-communism, communism, libertarian socialism and the anti-globalization movement.
A water cannon is a device that shoots a high-velocity stream of water. Typically, a water cannon can deliver a large volume of water, often over dozens of meters. They are used in firefighting, large vehicle washing, riot control, and mining. Most water cannons fall under the category of a fire monitor.
Riot control measures are used by law enforcement, military, paramilitary or security forces to control, disperse, and arrest people who are involved in a riot, unlawful demonstration or unlawful protest.
A police riot is a riot carried out by the police; more specifically, it is a riot that police are responsible for instigating, escalating or sustaining as a violent confrontation. Police riots are often characterized by widespread police brutality, and they may be done for the purpose of political repression.
The custodian helmet is a type of helmet worn predominantly by male police officers in the United Kingdom, within England and Wales, and certain other places around the world. First used by the Metropolitan Police in London in 1863, the BBC labelled the custodian helmet a "symbol of British law enforcement". They are worn by male constables and sergeants on foot patrol—the expression "Bobby on the beat" derives from this. A cultural icon, it has featured in films, TV series and other media involving British police.
The Guy Fawkes mask is a stylised depiction of Guy Fawkes created by illustrator David Lloyd for the 1982–1989 graphic novel V for Vendetta. Inspired by the use of a mask representing Fawkes being burned on an effigy having long previously had roots as part of Guy Fawkes Night celebrations, Lloyd designed the mask as a smiling face with red cheeks, a wide moustache upturned at both ends, and a thin vertical pointed beard, worn in the graphic novel's narrative by anarchist protagonist V.
The Public Eye on Davos, held every year between 2000 and 2015, was a counter-event to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
From 6 to 11 July 1997 there were mass protests, fierce riots and gun battles in Irish nationalist districts of Northern Ireland. Irish nationalists/republicans, in some cases supported by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), attacked the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and British Army. The protests and violence were sparked by the decision to allow the Orange Order to march through a Catholic/nationalist neighbourhood of Portadown. Irish nationalists were outraged by the decision and by the RUC's aggressive treatment of those protesting against the march. There had been a bitter dispute over the march for many years.
The Preventing Persons from Concealing Their Identity during Riots and Unlawful Assemblies Act is a private member's bill, criminalising the actions of protesters who cover their faces during tumultuous demonstrations and introducing a five-year prison sentence for the offence, introduced before the House of Commons of Canada in October 2011 during the 41st Parliament. On February 15, 2012, a 190–97 vote confirmed that the bill would enter a second reading and be sent to the House Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.
On 3 December 2012, Belfast City Council voted to limit the days that the Union Flag flies from Belfast City Hall. Since 1906, the flag had been flown every day of the year. This was reduced to 18 specific days a year, the minimum requirement for UK government buildings. The move to limit the number of days was backed by the council's Irish nationalists while the Alliance Party abstained from the vote; it was opposed by the unionist councillors.
Anti-mask or anti-masking laws are legislative or penal initiatives prohibiting the concealment of one's face in public. Anti-mask laws vary widely between jurisdictions in their intent, scope, and penalties.
Police uniforms in the United States vary widely due to the nation's tradition of highly decentralized law enforcement. Over time, however, a number of general conventions and styles have become representative of American police fashion. Police officers wear uniforms to deter crime by establishing a visible presence while on patrol, to make themselves easily identifiable to non-police officers or to their colleagues who require assistance, and to quickly identify each other at crime scenes for ease of coordination.
The militarization of police is the use of military equipment and tactics by law enforcement officers. This includes the use of armored personnel carriers (APCs), assault rifles, submachine guns, flashbang grenades, sniper rifles, and SWAT teams. The militarization of law enforcement is also associated with intelligence agency–style information gathering aimed at the public and political activists and with a more aggressive style of law enforcement. Criminal justice professor Peter Kraska has defined militarization of police as "the process whereby civilian police increasingly draw from, and pattern themselves around, the tenets of militarism and the military model".
Patriot Front is an American white nationalist and neo-fascist hate group. Part of the broader alt-right movement, the group split off from the neo-Nazi organization Vanguard America in the aftermath of the Unite the Right rally in 2017. Patriot Front's aesthetic combines traditional Americana with fascist symbolism. Internal communications within the group indicated it had approximately 200 members as of late 2021. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the group generated 82% of reported incidents in 2021 involving distribution of racist, antisemitic, and other hateful propaganda in the United States, comprising 3,992 incidents, in every continental state.
In October 2019, the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests saw a further escalation of violence. It became evident that the protests were unlikely to end soon, and that they posed the biggest popular challenge to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping since his ascension to CCP general secretary in 2012. To bring the situation under control, Chief Executive Carrie Lam invoked colonial-era powers to impose an anti-mask law, aimed at preventing protesters from hiding their identity. Observers considered the law, which came into force on 4 October, as a precedent for possible wider use of emergency powers at the expense of citizens' freedoms and in addition democratic rights, as they even saw the possibility of the upcoming District Council elections being cancelled based on the emergency law. The mask ban did, however, not achieve the desired effect, but rather proved a further focal point of protests. In November, the High Court ruled the mask ban to be unconstitutional, although in April 2020, an Appeal Court ruled that it was constitutional in the case of unlawful assemblies.
Protests, demonstrations and strikes occurred around the world against national responses to the COVID-19 pandemic by governmental bodies. Some were driven by the financial hardship resulting from government measures to contain the virus, including restrictions on travel and entertainment, hitting related industries and workers hard. Protests also occurred in opposition to restrictions on people's movements, compulsory wearing of face masks, lockdowns, vaccinations and other measures. Some protests were driven by COVID-19 misinformation, conspiracy theories, far-right and other extremist groups and individuals.
The COVID-19 protests in Canada are protests that began in April 2020, with protests in Vancouver, Toronto, Edmonton, and Ottawa against the Government of Canada's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent measures.
The Shinjuku riot was a violent clash between police and anti-Vietnam War protesters who occupied Shinjuku Station in Tokyo, Japan, on 21 October 1968. The incident took place in the context of mass demonstrations in observation of "International Anti-War Day". In total more than 800,000 Japanese left-wing activists, including the Beheiren anti-war coalition, labor unionists, and radical student groups also participating in the 1968–1969 Japanese university protests, carried out a variety of demonstrations and protest activities across Japan. By occupying Shinjuku Station and disrupting the normal transit of trains, a large group of protesters in Tokyo hoped to express their disapproval of the Japanese government's support for the United States-led war in Vietnam. The riot was mostly broken up by the morning of 22 October due to the invocation of the Anti-Riot Law by police, an act that was largely condoned by the press and led to greater police confidence.
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