Topic:
Country: Niger
Delegate Name: Amant Grewal
Amant Grewal
Forest Hills Central High School
Republic of Niger
SOCHUM
Right to Peaceful Protest
Many a country have committed to allowing their citizens to assemble peacefully, yet they are reluctant to guarantee the right to peaceful protest. Peaceful protest poses a threat of opposition to those who have been cemented in power by destabilizing their political reign and occasionally, causing a risk to national security. As a result of this, protection for peaceful protest is not universal. Some nations guarantee the right to peacefully protest in their constitutions, national laws, local laws, and sentiment. Others simply imply the right to peaceful protest or express verbal confirmation of it rather than actual legislation. This lack of legislation leads to suppression of opposing voices and violent crackdowns on dissenters.
The Nigerien constitution provides the residents of the country with the freedom of assembly, but there have been many reported incidents where this right has been ignored. Protesters have been beaten, tortured, imprisoned, and killed. Suspicious disappearances of activists have also happened. But, this is only because Niger prioritizes its national security above the right to peacefully protest. In recent elections, peaceful protests have dissolved into violence and instability, so it is important to keep the peace at all costs, even if that means preventing or breaking up peaceful protests that have the potential to cause unrest.
Although many nations would like to see the universal acceptance of the right to peaceful protest, this is simply unrealistic as many unstable and underdeveloped countries do not have to option to allow for civil unrest due to the effects it may have, such as further instability and harm to its people. So, the Republic of Niger agrees that there should be some level of promise to the right to peaceful protest, but national and regional security interests must be seen as more important than this right as national stability contributes to the assurance of many other internationally recognized human rights.
