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memus_dankus t1_j6azhet wrote

Reply to comment by IkLms in Hundreds of climate activists were arrested in The Hague after blocking the A12 highway in both ways on Saturday afternoon in protest at government subsidies for fossil fuels such as oil and gas by DoremusJessup

Blocking the roads is illegal, making the protest illegal. Wether you agree with it or not, the judge is upholding the law. It has nothing to do with freedom of speech.

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CasperIG t1_j6b8cgg wrote

Blocking a road is a legal form of protest in the EU

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memus_dankus t1_j6b98sq wrote

Can you give me a source?

Because article 162 of the Dutch code of law states this:

>Any person who willfully destroys, renders unusable or damages any work serving public or air traffic, obstructs any public land or waterway or defeats any safety measure taken with regard to such work or road, shall be punished: 1 a term of imprisonment not exceeding nine years or a fine of the fifth category, if this is likely to endanger the safety of traffic; 2 a term of imprisonment not exceeding fifteen years or a fine of the fifth category, if this is likely to endanger the safety of traffic and the act results in the death of someone.

Which seems pretty reasonable imo

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CasperIG t1_j6b9wud wrote

Source is the lawyer of the people that got arrested before they even went to the protest: https://twitter.com/khalidensophie/status/1618675855626014724 (Dutch video)

Better source that you can translate;

> Ook uit Europeesrechtelijke jurisprudentie blijkt dat een blokkadeactie wel degelijk de bescherming van het demonstratierecht kan toekomen. Zo oordeelde het Europese Hof voor de Rechten van de Mens (EHRM) in de zaak Kudrevičius e.a. tegen Litouwen (2015) bijvoorbeeld dat een demonstratieve blokkade van drie autosnelwegen door boeren onder de reikwijdte van de vrijheid van demonstreren in de zin van artikel 11 EVRM valt.

https://www.openbareorde.nl/tijdschrift/de-grenzen-van-het-recht-om-te-demonstreren/

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onekhador t1_j6bm0su wrote

That's why all those Friesian racists were arrested when they blocked the road to stop the bus filled with people going to protest against the racist Black Piet, right? Right?

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memus_dankus t1_j6bmcks wrote

It was one of the reasons, yes.

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whiteandyellowcat t1_j6cawoq wrote

Stop talking about shit you know nothing about. They were not arrested, neither were farmers who blocked way more roads. The Dutch state definitely took a side against the climate and left wing activists.

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memus_dankus t1_j6cmoh7 wrote

What do you think arrested means?

And I agree, the government is clearly not treating farmers and climate protestors equally but that still doesn’t have anything to do with the point I’m trying to make here.

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CasperIG t1_j6dy2e8 wrote

Actually the article I shared in the parent thread says

> In de zogeheten ‘blokkeerfriezen’-zaak oordeelt de Rechtbank Noord-Nederland dat de door de blokkeerfriezen opgeworpen blokkadeactie op de snelweg niet de bescherming van het recht om te demonsteren toekomt.

So I’d assume some people got arrested.

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smolheals t1_j6c8l49 wrote

I don't know why you think lawfulness is at odds with dystopian. There's plenty of fucked up, immoral laws around, coincidentally they protect the genocidal oligarchs.

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Torifyme12 t1_j6b0etu wrote

I dunno plenty of Europeans were telling us we should just listen to what the people blocking the freeways here in the US said.

​

I guess it's annoying when it's your freeway not someone else's

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memus_dankus t1_j6b0zka wrote

I didn’t say that and I’m not saying that now.

I’m just giving the reason why they were arrested. It doesn’t really effect me because I don’t live in The Hague and don’t even have a car. But personally I don’t think protestors should block roads for any reason.

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_carmimarrill t1_j6bh8dj wrote

So we only allow convenient protests then, what a firebrand you must be

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memus_dankus t1_j6bhtgp wrote

Oh, fuck off, I was only giving the reason why they were arrested. It doesn’t even matter what you think. As it turns out, Inciting people to do something that is illegal is also illegal by itself.

Blocking roads not only inconveniences people, it also endangers them. We either allow all protestors to block roads or we allow none. I’m going for the latter.

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whiteandyellowcat t1_j6capiy wrote

Demonstrating is allowed on public roads in the Netherlands, otherwise you could just protest on side walks. Next to this highway there was another road which emergency services could take.

The main reason for the blocking wasn't to block normal people, the road lies right in between the parliament and the ministry of economic affairs and climate.

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koreamax t1_j6bwg66 wrote

Only teenagers and unemployed people think disrupting normal people trying to make a living is a good way to protest

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MrTimscampi t1_j6c1z63 wrote

Because paid holidays, unemployment benefits and other social changes were brought by the kindness of the ruling class, through peaceful discussions, not through disruption and violence.

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koreamax t1_j6c2n9y wrote

You're advocating for violence to get things we already have?

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MrTimscampi t1_j6c5wzr wrote

I’m only responding to what you said. If our ancestors agreed with you, we’d have none of these.

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_carmimarrill t1_j6cqhxw wrote

I should note, I never said that occupying the road was a good way to protest. It might be, but it usually won’t be, that kind if thing is highly contextual. But I gotta say what an excellent way to shut down all nuance. “Only kids and poors would ever do this, but NORMAL people know better”. That’s gotta be the douchiest way to be anti-protester I’ve ever seen, one glance at the photos of the incident and obviously it isn’t just minors and the unemployed there. You will make an excellent propagandist one day

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idontagreewitu t1_j6c1gyx wrote

They also liked to criticize US border control policies until they started seeing high immigration numbers from the Middle East.

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IkLms t1_j6djuqi wrote

Those seven people were not even protesting. They were arrested for posting about the event before it even happened. That's insane

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memus_dankus t1_j6dl4p0 wrote

You can be arrested for Inciting people to commit criminal behaviour.

If you were openly conspiring to do something illegal in the US and tried using social media to recruit people to help you, you’d also get a knock on the door.

Plenty of people get arrested for such things, it’s how we stop terrorism, assassinations, etc.

While blocking highways is not as bad as murder or terrorism, it’s still considered a major offense in most countries. But I’m sure that in this case the circumstances will be taken into account and these people won’t face any serious punishment.

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Victor_2501 t1_j6f6e0c wrote

Yeah, busting into peoples houses and drag them out seems to be a thing for Americans, domestic and abroad. You say it's not as bad as terrorism but justifies similar procedures.

Come on dude, no one takes you seriously outside of the US. Blocking roads is somewhat terroristic but blowing someone's face of for being on "your" lawn or you feeling threatened is just your God given right? :D Seems like a sane approach, for sure.

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memus_dankus t1_j6fby2c wrote

I’m Dutch for the record.

And most of us are sick of people blocking our infrastructure for their protests. So don’t try to speak for us.

I’m not ok with farmers doing it and I’m not ok with climate protestors doing it. And it’s certainly not something that should be normalised.

All crimes require similar procedures. It’s the punishments that are different.

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Victor_2501 t1_j6hobu8 wrote

We know that you don't like that :D That's the point. Yeah yeah, people get mad about it but didn't give a single shit about all the other protests, warnings and major events that you should have cared about. You always want to ignore things so you just can live in your small world, believing that would be the solution. You thinking that blocking of the infrastructure would be problematic? Having years of drought, a dying eco-system and collapse of societal structures are kinda more devastating.

I don't need to frame you. You give away your worldview pretty easily and it's not that complex.

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myles_cassidy t1_j6cj28i wrote

> It has nothing to do with freedom of speech

People were literally being arrested for speaking. That definitrly makes it a freedom if speech matter. Unless you are suggesting it can't be because it's lawful?

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Nervous_Original_450 t1_j6d3h9z wrote

>Blocking the roads is illegal, making the protest illegal. Wether you agree with it or not, the judge is upholding the law. It has nothing to do with freedom of speech.

Well the law is dystopian as fuck

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memus_dankus t1_j6d3r2w wrote

No it isn’t, I’m pretty sure most countries have laws against sabotaging critical infrastructure and for good reason.

They literally blocked one of the main arteries going into The Hague. It’s dangerous and irresponsible.

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