by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
City of Madison, WI: Law enforcement agencies of the City of Madison, Wisconsin, praised the behavior of the demonstrators who had gathered on Saturday, February 19, 2011, at the State capital's Capitol Square.
The message from the law renouncement command is as follows: “On behalf of all the law enforcement agencies that helped keep the peace on the Capitol Square Saturday, a very sincere thank you to all of those who showed up to exercise their First Amendment rights.
“You conducted yourselves with great decorum and civility, and if the eyes of the nation were upon Wisconsin, then you have shown how democracy can flourish even amongst those who passionately disagree. As of 5:00 p.m., no major incidents had been reported. There have been no arrests. However, discourse and discussion was - at times - loud and heated. That was to be expected. As previously indicated, the goal of law enforcement has been to provide a safe environment for democracy to take place. That goal has been realized for yet another day.”
I doubt that it is often that demonstrators are lauded in such a way by the police and other agencies and it would be good to have the Wisconsin example be followed with demonstrations not only in America but in other parts of the world.
That also, obviously, means that the police and law enforcement agencies have to recognize that the people have a right to peacefully assemble and to protest peacefully, which is something that the police in Britain all too often seems to forget and every protester and demonstrator is immediately seems as a domestic terrorist and that even extends to young children, who have been strip searched by police when attending environmental demos with their parents, for instance.
There are two sides to the coin always and while, at times, there are rogue elements within the protesters, very often, at least in Britain, as has been seen from the collapsed case against some environmental activists, police agent provocateurs are brought into play to make an protest turn violent. The same seems to have been the case recently on some occasions in Germany.
Despite the fact that the constitutions, whether written, as in the case of Germany, or unwritten, as in the case of the United Kingdom, permits peaceful protests as soon as it is environmental activists and eco-warriors the scene is turned by the law enforcement agencies and the spectre of domestic terrorists is being painted. So much for democratic freedoms.
However, also in the USA things have been ugly at times when law enforcement agencies were too eager or when their commanders or chiefs overreacted and examples can be found by the legion as to this.
It is, therefore, very refreshing to see a statement such as this coming from the law enforcement command in the City of Madison.
Could there be a statement coming from the protesters too as to how the police behaved and, if all was fine, may be a thank you to them too?
© 2011
