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In May 2016, I submitted a memorandum to the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), a limb of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which had identified a dearth of literature and research upon the specific issues that women face in accessing their right to peacefully assemble. Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects the right to freedom of assembly and association. This blog piece will explore some of the findings from my paper.
There are disparities between the ways in which women and men can enjoy the right to peaceful assembly respectively, and the paper made a strong case for ‘gender mainstreaming’, which means ensuring that gender perspectives and attention to the goal of gender equality are central to all activities (policy development, research, legislation, resource allocation, planning, etc.). The right to peaceful assembly protects non-violent, organised gatherings for a common expressive purpose in public and in private. Freedom of peaceful assembly is a fundamental human right to be enjoyed and exercised by individuals, groups, unregistered associations, legal entities and corporate bodies, and States have an obligation to facilitate peaceful assembly in order to uphold democratic principles. The protection of the right is essential in creating a tolerant and pluralistic society in which groups with wildly different beliefs, practices and policies can exist peacefully together.
Restrictions on the exercise of these rights must be prescribed by law and be necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals or the protection of the right and freedoms of others. Unfortunately, patriarchal attitudes and stereotypes in societies that still promote a narrow understanding of the role of women as being confined to the private sphere prevent women from organising and participating in activities in the public sphere. The suffrage movement exemplified how the right of assembly can effect change in a democracy.
Given that women have been persistently discriminated against throughout history, there are many specific reasons why women peacefully assemble and protest, and many such assemblies are premised on issues pertaining to women’s rights. This was seen earlier this year in Cologne, Germany, where thousands of women protestors responded to what they saw as the incompetence of the police in dealing with the mass sexual assaults that occurred on the New Years Eve of 2015. Women often assemble to protest about gender gaps in their countries, particularly in terms of economic participation and opportunity, as seen recently in Italy and Turkey. And earlier this month, tens of thousands of Polish women assembled in Warsaw to protest against the abortion ban proposal.
Shocking events in recent years have highlighted the importance of recognising the disparities between women and men in their enjoyment of the right to peacefully assemble. Women were sexually harassed when peacefully protesting in Tahrir Square (Egypt) in 2011 and 2012, leading to specific peaceful assemblies in Egypt demanding an end to such assaults at protests. The peaceful protest that took place on 8 June 2012 is particularly disturbing: men waded into a group of around 50 women, who were surrounded by a protective ring of men joining hands, and sexually assaulted them. Similar issues have arisen in Sudan.
As well as being subject to sexual harassment while peacefully protesting, women have experienced violence from police officers, such as being beaten and sprayed with tear gas. This was what occurred in the case of İzcİ v. Turkey, heard by the European Court of Human Rights in 2013. Maina Kiai, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, expressed his utmost concern in his 2012 report over peaceful assemblies that are violently dispersed. He declared that “gas does not discriminate between demonstrators and non-demonstrators, healthy people and people with health conditions”. Earlier this year, Turkish police fired rubber bullets to disperse a crowd of women in Istanbul trying to mark International Women’s Day and draw attention to women’s issues in Turkey. After researching further, I discovered that the firing of rubber bullets has been found to be highly inaccurate, and therefore deduced that vulnerable areas such as the stomachs of pregnant women could not easily be avoided, so these could clearly do serious damage to developing foetuses.
I explored the issue of intersectional discrimination (which is discrimination on multiple grounds simultaneously in such a way that these are mutually constitutive and inseparable), which recently surfaced in Brussels, where far-right extremists directly targeted and intimidated Muslim women among peaceful protestors attempting to remember and pay respect to victims of the terrorist attacked in Brussels in March 2016. Further, numerous jurisdictions have now banned peaceful protestors from covering their faces during assemblies, and this could deprive burqa-wearing women from exercising their right to peaceful assembly.
The paper advocated for the creation of ‘enabling environments’ - a term used by the ODIHR in its report on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders - for women to peacefully assemble, and suggested that the presumption in favour of holding assemblies should be robustly upheld. It suggested that when States do not authorise assemblies, clear and specific reasons must be given. It highlighted that States have an obligation to exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate and punish the perpetrators of violence against women and girls, and recommended that special protectionist measures and additional security should be provided where necessary to safeguard women from sexual violence while peacefully assembling. Women’s assemblies should not be dispersed where they are peaceful and I argued that the use of rubber bullets upon women (some of whom could be pregnant) should be banned.