Context: Recently, the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee has reaffirmed that protesting peacefully, online or in person, is a fundamental human right.
Background

• The committee is tasked with monitoring how countries implement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which under Article 21 guarantees the right to peaceful assembly.

What’s the issue?

• Authorities worldwide are grappling with swelling demonstrations over issues like political rights and racial justice. At some places, coercive forces are being used to suppress the voices of protesters.
• Therefore, right to peaceful assembly has come into the spotlight.
• Supporters believe that protesting peacefully, online or in person, is a fundamental human right.

Important observations made by the Human Rights Committee

• Fundamental Human Right for People: To gather to celebrate or to air grievances in public and in private spaces, outdoors, indoors and online is a fundamental human right.
• Protesters: Everyone, including children, foreign nationals, women, migrant workers, asylum seekers and refugees, can exercise the right of peaceful assembly.
• Protection: Protesters have the right to wear masks or hoods to cover their face and that Governments should not collect personal data to harass or intimidate participants.
• Role of Journalists and Human Rights Observers: They have the right to monitor and document any assembly, including violent and unlawful ones.

Government Obligations

• Governments could not prohibit protests by making “generalised references to public order or public safety, or an unspecified risk of potential violence”.
• Governments cannot block internet networks or close down any website because of their roles in organising or soliciting a peaceful assembly.

Significance

• The Committee’s interpretation will be important guidance for judges in national and regional courts around the world, as it now forms part of what is known as ‘soft law’.
• The interpretation is a form of legal advice (not mandatory) from the Committee that monitors the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) 1976.

Indian Scenario

• India is a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
• The right to protest, to publicly question and force the government to answer, is a fundamental political right of the people that flows directly from a democratic reading of Article 19 of the Constitution of India.
• Article 19 (1) (a) states that all citizens shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression.
• Article 19 (1) (b) states that all citizens shall have the right to assemble peaceably and without arms.
• However, the State can impose reasonable restrictions on the exercise of right of assembly on two grounds, namely, sovereignty and integrity of India and public order including the maintenance of traffic in the area concerned.
• Further, Indian courts have reiterated that the right to protest is a fundamental right (Ramlila Maidan Incident v. Home Secretary, Union Of India & Ors. case -2012).

About ICCPR

• It is a multilateral treaty adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) became effective in 1976.
• Monitored by the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
• The covenant commits its parties to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, electoral rights and rights to due process and a fair trial.
• The ICCPR is part of the International Bill of Human Rights, along with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).