FOR the second time in two weeks, we have read of the role of the RPNG Constabulary in authorising public protests.
First, we learned of a cancelled protest march by a group seeking to express its beliefs concerning the Moti affair.
The scheduled march to Parliament was reportedly disallowed by the police.
Then last Thursday, we learned of a protest by workers employed by Mt Hagen local level government who dumped a large quantity of rubbish outside the entrance to Kapal Haus, the nerve centre of the Western Highlands provincial government.
Police officers told the protesters that they had failed to “give notice” of their intentions and their actions were therefore illegal. The whole issue of the police granting permission for protests by the public seems to us to warrant investigation.
Papua New Guinea, we are endlessly told by our leaders, is a free and open democracy, one in which the people are at liberty to express their views in public. Yet when it comes to the crunch, it seems that such rights are hedged about with regulations.
Does anyone seriously imagine that our police force hierarchy would defy Government wishes and permit a protest march in the face of expressed Government disapproval?
It seems to us that it matters little whether intending protesters approach the police hierarchy for permission to stage a protest; their application will almost certainly be refused.
It’s a simple matter to come up with apparently sound reasons to warrant a negative response to such requests.
A protest march might be viewed as potentially disturbing the peace.
It might be viewed as posing a challenge to the government over a minor or a major matter.
But surely the right to protest is an integral part of any working democracy?
And surely on-going refusal to authorise protest matches or similar public expressions can only lead – and has done in the past – to major riots that have cost the community dearly?
If the public is unable to express itself through a peaceful and orderly march through the streets to Parliament, for example, then what form of public protest is acceptable to the Government?
We have just had a striking example of a law-abiding petition to Parliament that has been rubbished and trivialised by default.
The members of the House, with a few outstanding exceptions, have simply ignored the impassioned pleas expressed in a petition that most certainly mirrored the will of the people.
That issue is a social and behavioural issue, one that affects civil society in our country.
What of political protests?
There are those who maintain that having an Opposition in Parliament means that there is no need for the people to protest – dissenting voices can be accommodated on the floor of the House.
But there are circumstances where neither the Government nor the Opposition reflects the wishes nor the will of the people.
And if our Constitution guarantees freedom of assembly, of speech, of publication and a number of other freedoms, then is it right for the public to be restricted in their access to accepted democratic forms of legitimate protest?
It seems to us, first, that the public right to legitimate protest is being whittled away.
If that is true, then we should see it as a warning signal for our young nation.
Second, if some form of control is deemed necessary over public protests, we doubt that the police force is the appropriate body.
Why not give that function to the Ombudsman Commission?
Finally – if public protest in the form of demonstrations, marches and the like is now unacceptable, will that insidious control grow to include the banning of published or broadcast protests, or those involving public meetings?
We are advocating neither revolution nor revolt.
PNG is indeed a fortunate country, one that has so far managed to avoid the plague of military or dictatorial control.
But it will not continue to do so if public commentary, debate and protests are banned.
Papua New Guineans are citizens of a free country and those freedoms are spelled out in many places.
We must be vigilant and repel those who would snuff out those freedoms in the name of “political stability” or “public order”.