Peaceful Protest Is a Human Right!

Look, comrade, sit right here, right next to me. Don't withdraw so far away, into the shadows. I can see that hesitation in your eyes, that cold shadow cast by the question "I wonder if something will happen to us?" I do not blame you at all; because the system standing before us right now is an enormous illusion machine that feeds precisely on this fear, on this sense of isolation.

The current hegemonic system loves to promise individuals "freedoms"; as long, of course, as these freedoms do not disrupt productivity, do not break the flow of capital, and do not threaten the comfort of the rulers. Amnesty International's campaign "Peaceful protest is a human right" puts its finger right on the middle of this contradiction. The capitalist state apparatus is not content merely with confining our bodies to factories, offices, and corporate plazas; it also surrounds our minds with invisible bars. They make us breathe an atmosphere in which our most fundamental, most natural right, peaceful protest, is made to feel as if it were the secret act of an underground organization, as if it were a crime by birth. Walking side by side in the street, raising one's voice against injustice, is marketed as "great audacity."

As people of the future, we must say this: Rights are not a favor granted to us by the ruling class, but gains that the masses have wrested away throughout history. Come, let us pass the promises of law on paper and the realities in the streets and courthouses through a philosophical, legal, and revolutionary filter, and talk about it all from top to bottom. Let us sincerely disperse this veil of fog.

Theory: Constitutional Articles Are Not a Favor, but a Historical Trench

To preserve its own legitimacy and to let off the steam of the masses, the system has been forced to place certain articles in the Constitution. Our constitutional rights in force today are not gifts the rulers granted us at a Sunday breakfast. Those articles are the trace, carved into the legal text, of workers' struggles waged at the cost of lives on these lands and across the world, of the June 15-16 uprisings, of Gezi, of historical gains. The Constitution of the Republic of Turkey and international conventions guarantee the right to peaceful protest clearly and explicitly.

• Constitution Article 34: "Everyone has the right to hold unarmed and peaceful meetings and demonstration marches without prior permission." Let us carve the meaning of this sentence into our minds: without prior permission. For the police or the governor to say "You have no permission" is one big lie. When we exercise our right, we do not ask the state for permission; the state is obliged to ensure that we can exercise our right safely.
• Constitution Article 90: It accepts the supremacy of international conventions over domestic law. Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), to which Turkey is a signatory, recognizes the freedom of assembly and association as an absolute right and limits states' interference with this right.
• Law No. 2911: The Law on Meetings and Demonstration Marches, however much it is used in practice as a restrictive shackle, in essence must exist not to "ban" the exercise of this right, but to "facilitate it and ensure security."

Practice: The Lawlessness Experienced in the Streets and the Illusion

So, how does this law on paper turn into practice in the street? The moment the dominant system sees masses raising their voices, it suspends its own law. Fear is the cheapest, most cost-free, and most effective weapon of mass destruction of this rotting system. The arbitrary bans of the governorates, the riot-control water cannons (TOMA) at the street corners, police armored as if going to war... None of these are for "security," comrade. They are all theatrical stage sets designed to feed that voice in your mind saying "Lie low, stay at home, don't disturb the order." The fundamental practical problems we encounter in the streets are these:

The "You Didn't Get Permission" Lie: Governorates and security forces, completely disregarding Article 34 of the Constitution, impose the notification procedure as if it were a "permission mechanism," and try to put the masses into the psychology of criminals with announcements of "You did not get permission, disperse." This is entirely unlawful.

• Arbitrary Governorate and District Bans: By abusing the loopholes in Law No. 2911 and abstract concepts such as "public order" and "general morality," blanket bans on action and events lasting for weeks are declared in cities. This is a clear violation of the prohibition against touching the essence of the right.
• Disproportionate and Unlawful Police Violence: People who have peacefully come together are met with pepper gas, pressurized water, and plastic bullets that are treated as weapons of mass destruction. A demonstration does not lose its quality of being "peaceful" merely because slogans are chanted or a banner is opened; rather, it is the security forces who violate the prohibition of torture out in the open street.

The Insidious Weapon of the New Era: The Judiciary as an Instrument of Punishment

Now, comrade, let us look at the darker and more insidious face of the coin, that is, at today's searing reality. The apparatus we face does not have only its shield, its baton, and its pepper gas; it has in its hand a far more corrosive weapon: the non-application of the law and the turning of the judiciary itself into an instrument of punishment. Under the conditions we are in today, the state itself commits the greatest illegality by violating the laws it has laid down. Now the issue is not just the barricades set up before us in the street; it is the use of courthouses, courtrooms, and prisons as "grinders" to intimidate those seeking their rights. We call this judicial harassment.

• Detention Is Not a Measure but Punishment in Advance: Being taken into custody by force for participating in a peaceful action is not a requirement of any legal process. That 24-48 hour period in the holding cell, the imposition of reverse handcuffs, the referrals to judicial control; these are practices of advance punishment, designed to wear you down physically and psychologically and to send a message to your family and circle: "Look, if you go out, this is how you will end up."
• Prolonged Detention Periods and the Policy of Hostage-Taking: Today the judiciary has turned "pre-trial detention" into a principal punishment in order to silence dissenting voices. Keeping people behind iron bars for months, sometimes for years, when there is no concrete evidence, and sometimes not even a written indictment, is not a legal necessity but a political strategy of hostage-taking. The courts punish people whose guilt they cannot prove, by stealing from their lives.
• The Liquidation of Higher Court Rulings: The open disregard by local courts and the administration of the rulings of the Constitutional Court (AYM) or the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is the clearest proof that even bourgeois law has been completely suspended. The system is liquidating its own constitutional order with its own hands.

A Historical Warning: Every Step Back Widens the Borders of Fascism

The moment you say, comrade, "Let us not raise our voice now, the situation is bad anyway, let us not get into trouble, let us sit at home," you fall into precisely that deadly trap the system wants. Because this system is like an insatiable monster that knows no stopping. The more you retreat, the further it pushes its borders.

It Is a Historical Rule: Fascism feeds on consent and silence. If today you abandon the street out of fear of "I will be taken into custody," tomorrow you will not be surprised when your door is broken down because of an opinion you expressed at home. If today you leave your comrade alone, saying "They will be arrested, let it not touch me," then tomorrow, when it is your turn, you will not find a single person around you to make your cry heard.

To take a step back does not mean preserving the status quo or staying safe. To take a step back is to raise the bar of oppression with your own hands. A square banned today turns into a march banned tomorrow; and that, the day after, into ideas completely banned and into a total suffocation. Every silence of ours is recorded as a positional gain in the rulers' ledger.

These Are Your Rights: To Know Is the Greatest Resistance

We will not cower, because we are in the right. We will not be afraid, because even the laws are obliged to stand behind us. The fundamental rights that those shielded structures before you have forgotten, but that you must never forget, are these:

• You Are Not Obliged to Get Permission: As long as you are peaceful and unarmed, you are not obliged to obtain sanction from any state institution to protest. Merely coming together for a peaceful purpose is sufficient for the exercise of the right.
• The Field of Struggle Is Public: Squares, avenues, and parks are not transit routes designed only for shopping or going to work. Public spaces are political arenas where the people declare their will. Your right to stand in that street is absolute.
• The Right Not to Be Interfered With: A demonstration does not lose its quality of being "peaceful" merely because the government is being criticized. The state's duty is not to disperse you, but to ensure that you can carry out your protest safely. The decision to disperse cannot be arbitrary.
• The Right Not to Suffer Torture and Ill-Treatment: Being put in reverse handcuffs, being beaten, or being insulted while being taken into custody or during a protest is a crime. The power of the security forces is not unlimited; it is limited by the laws.
• The Right to Remain Silent and to Demand a Lawyer: In the event of a possible unlawful detention, you are not obliged to give a statement without your lawyer present. The first step in protecting your rights is to summon your legal shield against the apparatuses of the system and to activate your comrade network.

The Future Is Built Not by Cowards, but by Those Who Stand Side by Side!

Do you know what history whispers to us, comrade? The moment the rulers fear most is the moment when those isolated, lonely individuals they can pick off one by one come together and become a class, that is, an unshakable whole.

The order of capital wants to break us down into our atoms. It imprisons you to the screen at your home, me to the workbench at the factory, the other to the bench in the lecture hall, the next one to the desk in the plaza, so that we may not see one another's wounds, may not hear one another's anger. Because they know well: the isolated human is meek, fragile, and cowardly. What they want from us is to kneel before that weapon.

But we reject those invisible walls, those mental prisons!

What does this system promise us? More precariousness, a deeper alienation, the plundering of nature, and a space to breathe that grows a little narrower every day... This means the end of humanity. Our alternative, however, is not an abstract utopia; it is a future where production is carried out not for the profit of a handful of parasites but for the needs and liberation of all humanity, where the squares are turned into arenas of real democracy in which the people directly determine their own fate, where human does not serve human as a slave.

This future, then, will not be built in the rulers' ivory towers or in the comfortable seats of bourgeois parliaments. That future will be the work of those who, here today, before this apparatus of oppression, standing shoulder to shoulder, declare from today the founding will of that future!

If they aim the law at us like a weapon, we too hold in our hands an unshakable trench: the legitimacy of our righteousness and organized solidarity. We will turn the courtrooms and holding cells into mirrors that display their crimes. We will cry out to the world every unlawful detention, every prolonged imprisonment. When a comrade of ours is taken unlawfully, we will turn those courthouse corridors, those prison gates, into spaces of solidarity. Those isolation cells they have designed as punishment, we will shatter to pieces with our organized will from the outside.

Shake off that fear. Straighten your shoulders. We are not committing a crime; we are defending the trampled dignity of this country, its usurped rights, the common heritage of humanity. As Amnesty International too cries out: Peaceful protest is a human right! Let us carve this into the heart of the street, not merely as a legal text, but with a class faith, with a founding will.

Fear is a threshold, comrade. When we cross that threshold together, hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, what awaits us on the other side is not the barricades of capital, but freedom itself. The future will belong not to the cowards who wait at home for the storm to subside; but to those who become the storm itself and bring down the status quo.

Now look into my eyes and extend your hand. To that square, to that barricade, to that future...

We are walking together!