Police Protests

When reading through the collection of articles related to political protests two ethical questions kept being proposed: when is it ethical for a protest to be violent and how should an ethical government act? This is a loaded question because it focuses on two distinct agencies: the government of a country and the people within that country. These two agencies have tension that is seemingly always created by governmental action to stay in control of their people. 

While reading the articles it was clear to see that people within the countries of political unrest were provoked by governmental action. For example, in Hong Kong protests began when activists saw mainland China passing a bill that was seen as an erosion of Hong Kongs’ rights and autonomy (Quinn). These native people in Hong Kong want to keep their political freedom to make their own laws and elect their own leaders. However, China has been using political intervention and physical force through Hong Kong police to silence criticism of China’s involvement with Hong Kong. For a government to act ethically they should not look to harm or imposed themselves on the human rights of their people. China’s government is unfortunately known for repeatedly exercising this practice. 

It has been noted that the protests have not allowed people to go to work. This is to make sure that attention is placed on the protests. This draws parallels to peaceful disobedience that became popularised by the civil rights movement in the 1960s. In a perfect world, it is never acceptable for a protest to get violent and protests are more effective when the protest is cohesively nonviolent when presented with governmental violence.