In February 2019, the UK House of Lords marked the 100th anniversary of the Jallianwala Bagh, also known as the Amritsar massacre. The debate, secured by Lord Loomba, invited speakers from across the House to remember the lives lost and to debate contemporary challenges to the enjoyment of the right to expression or the right to peaceful assembly.
The events of April 13, 1919, will taint British history forever. On that day, hundreds, if not thousands of lives were lost within minutes. On that day, protestors had gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, Punjab, to protest against the arrest and deportation of two politicians. The peaceful protest was shattered when the British Indian Army opened fire on the crowd of between 10,000 and 20,000 protesters.
The massacre occurred in response to a peaceful public protest – an activity that was illegal under the rule of the British Empire. Nothing can ever justify the excessive use of force that day.
While it is the 100th anniversary of the Amritsar massacre that is marked today, it should be remembered that atrocities similar to the Amritsar massacre, in various degrees, continue to happen across the world. In honoring the victims of the Amritsar Massacre, we need to consider solutions to ensure that such violence will never happen again. Taking into account contemporary examples of excessive state response to protests, we have not yet reached this goal.
Sudan
In January 2019, the UN reported on the use of excessive force in Sudan against protesters. Protests were held in Sudan throughout 2018 and early 2019. The wave of protests was caused by a threefold increase in the price of bread in the city of Atbara. The response to the protests was marked by excessive use of force and the deployment of live ammunition against protestors. The Sudanese government has confirmed 24 fatalities among protestors. However, other credible data suggests much higher numbers. The same data suggests multiple non-fatal injuries. Up to 6 January 2019, 816 people were arrested in connection with the protests.
The UN reports suggested that those arrested were not just protesters, but also journalists, civil society representatives and opposition leaders. The UN further reported that security forces fired tear gas and live ammunition inside the premises of the Omdurman Hospital where some of the protesters had sought refuge. Similar occurrences are reported to have taken place at the Bahri Teaching Hospital and Haj Al-Safi Hospital.
Nicaragua
Since early 2018, a similar situation has emerged in Nicaragua. In 2018, thousands of citizens took to the streets to protest against repressive reforms in Nicaragua. As the Council of the European Union noted, these protests were “brutally repressed by security forces and pro-government armed groups leading to clashes, several hundred dead and injured and the arrest of hundreds of citizens, with widespread irregularities and arbitrariness in detention and judicial procedures.”
On December 21, 2018, the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI), a body established by the IACHR, launched a report on its finding from the IACHR’s working visit to Nicaragua entitled “Final Report on the Acts of Violence That Occurred between April 18 and May 30, 2018.” The GIEI concluded that the Nicaraguan government had been involved in widespread and systematic attacks on the civilian population that amount to crimes against humanity.
In the period from April 18 until May 30, 2018, the GIEI identified at least 109 fatalities, more than 1,400 injured and more than 690 detained persons. Although the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect reports that the situation continued to deteriorate and “between April and September 2018 at least 320 people were killed and 2,000 injured.”
The rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly protect peaceful protests or public gatherings. Both rights are enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Articles 19 and 21. Furthermore, the rights are also protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), in Articles 19 and 20. The UDHR constitutes a part of the customary international law and hence is binding upon all states.
The rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly need to be adequately recognized and enforced. This is the only way to prevent such atrocities as the Amritsar massacre. 100 years may have passed, international law may have developed significantly over that period of time, however, the contemporary cases discussed above show that we are still far from ensuring that such crimes are not repeated.
During the February 2019 debate at the UK House of Lords, Lord Alton called upon the UK Government to become a champion of the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly in memory of the lives lost in the Amritsar massacre. This call applies to other states too.
