Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Water Cannons Used Against Peaceful Anti-TTIP Protestors: the Next ACTA Revolt?

Posted by Unknown on from the one-of-them-looked-at-me-weird dept.

Glyn Moody (946055) writes "The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), potentially the world's biggest trade agreement, has been negotiated behind closed doors for nearly a year now. Apart from what we learn from a few official releases — and an increasing number of leaks — we still don't really know what is being agreed in the name of 800 million people in the U.S. and EU. When a peaceful anti-TTIP protest was held outside yet another closed-doors meeting in Belgium, the local police sent in the water cannons and arrested nearly 300 people in what seems an extreme over-reaction. Will TTIP turn into the next ACTA revolt?"

4 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Protests were Illegal. by mythosaz · · Score: 4, Informative

    The law in Belgium states that it is illegal to hold public protests without authorisation from the municipality.

    The video on this site, shows the round-up, and it seems, VERY VERY controlled and peaceful on both sides.
    http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ttip-...

    Nice people, the Belgish...

  2. Re:Protests were Illegal (and last Thursday) by WoOS · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes, if you look at the first video on http://www.ttip2014.eu/blog-de... around 0:20 you will see in the background a protestor holding out his hand to get it tight. Looks to me extremely civilized from both side. I don't see any overreaction. And if - possibly - the protest was unauthorized, participants might be offered a trip to the next police station for IDing. Civil disobidience has its price.

    And now before the US side claims that there is no freedom in Europe if protests need to be authorized: If authorization is denied, you can sue against it on a quick track. That's the reason why even the extreme right, which most people would like to deny protesting rights, can do it again and again.

    So TTIP might be bad and all but exagerating things just to prolong the attention (Protest was already last Thursday) is not the way to go.

  3. Re:Silly Peasants by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Informative

    we have a Republic, not a Democracy. If we can keep it.

    A republic is a country that is not a monarchy. Whether a country is a republic or not is orthogonal to whether it is a democracy.

    Examples of countries that are republics:
    The United States of America
    North Korea
    China
    France
    Germany
    Cuba

    Examples of countries that are NOT republics:
    Canada
    Saudi Arabia
    Japan
    Britain
    Norway

    I think the term you are looking for is "representative democracy", which may be either a republic or a monarchy.

  4. Re:Silly Peasants by ausrob · · Score: 5, Informative

    OK, how about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)? Or the current Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)? There are more examples, but hopefully you get the point. Even proposed US laws like PIPA/SOPA and current laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) can make their way into other countries by way of other seemingly unrelated economic trade agreements. For example, Australia has adopted DMCA like provisions as part of the Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA - incidentally modeled on NAFTA) between 2004-2006.