Sigh, the police have explained why they were arrested - at the time they thought they had just cause and after investigation decided there was insufficient evidence for a charge and released them. It happens every day. If the protesters feel they were treated wrongly there are processes they can follow for redress as you would expect in a 'liberal democracy'. The police aren't perfect but in the grand scheme of things this is really quire trivial.
It's how I have been looking it at it.
The entire context of how this was a world stage event requiring unprecendented levels of security immediately makes it not the norm.. and I even understand NMKs position in that this was the holy grail of opportunities for them.
However, despite all the 'working with the police' and getting everything agreed ahead of time, they literally couldn't help but slightly over do things with their rhetoric in the media in the build up.
e.g.
https://apnews.com/article/king-cha...ican-protest-6aab62a8c337568386914e6374a709be
We’ll try and keep the atmosphere light, but our aim is to make it impossible to ignore
Would I trust their intentions of just being a nice little peaceful protest.. no way..
Not to mention that at such an event, any large van turning up full of stuff like that is potentially problematic, the idea the Police should have immediately diverted a ton of resource to 'look after' the protestors paraphenalia and just followed them around seems untenable, to ensure security is maintained for the entire event, it's far easier to just shut things down at that point and confiscate / arrest the van driver and anyone associated around and deal with things later on the basis it poses too many potential security issues. if you attend any such event there is a tiny chance you might get caught up in any security activities and whilst that's not good for the individual, that's pretty much how it has to be..
At the end of the day, NMK protestors had a protest, many placards where used, they are not locked up in jail and did not get arrested on the day.. the fact a small number of them got detained with the Van and 1 innocent bystander was detained whilst everything was figured out is not that unreasonable given the context of the event.
I'm fine with an opposing opinion on this, 'feedback' should always be aired and even if I think the behaviour of the Police was justified at that moment, I have no problems ensuring they are scrutinised and can maybe learn something or improve things for the future, especially surrounding the false arrests, those are being looked in to and that is a good thing.
