protesting includes breaking the law and making it unsafe for others. There might be destruction of property, fighting, lighting fires and people carrying weapons. Unlawful protesting can be very dangerous. Everyone is free to associate with others including forming and joining trade unions or joining with others to pursue common causes and interests. The right of association also includes the freedom not to associate with others. Associations aren’t obliged to admit someone if other members decide their membership is not compatible with the group’s aims and interests – as long as this refusal does not come into conflict with equality and discrimination legislation.
It’s not necessarily a breach of protest rights if authorities require you to give notice of plans in advance, as long as notification doesn’t become an obstacle to free assembly. Accordingly, the chapter provides an empirical tool to test the equivalence of an index of political protest across different contexts, also using different sources of survey data, and shows how to maximize the comparability of the measure employed.
