The weapon used by the gunman was officially registered, and he himself held the relevant permits. According to journalists’ reports, the man turned out to be a lieutenant-colonel in the Russian Armed Forces – a native of Moscow with Ukrainian citizenship – who, according to some sources, had made donations in support of the so-called ‘special military operation’. According to preliminary information, he had already attacked people in the same shop three years earlier. Neighbours say he moved into the building at the start of the full-scale invasion.

These facts form a chilling picture, but our task is not to inflame emotions – it is to try to answer, calmly and honestly, the questions that this tragedy inevitably poses to society, the law enforcement system and the rule of law.

WEAPONS, LICENCES AND THE ILLUSION OF SAFETY

The first and most obvious conclusion that springs to mind is that this crime was committed using a legally registered weapon. This is not a mere detail but a fundamentally important circumstance that undermines one of the central arguments of those lobbying for the free circulation of firearms: ‘Legal Weapons = Safety’.

The debate over the liberalisation of the firearms market in Ukraine has raged for years, but it intensified particularly in the context of the full-scale war, when a section of society and a number of lawmakers began insisting on enshrining the right to bear arms in the constitution, citing the need for self-defence and patriotic duty. The tragedy in Korsun polarised society at the time: many people sympathised with the man who had used a weapon against law enforcement officers – which in itself is symptomatic and alarming.

The current case is fundamentally different. Here there is no ‘people’s avenger’ or ‘Korsun Robin Hood’, nor is there any hint of social conflict with the system. There is a retired lieutenant-colonel who shoots peaceful supermarket shoppers with a legally registered pistol. It is precisely this circumstance that should settle the debate: not ‘who’ commits the crime or what their ideology is, but the fact that Ukraine’s system for issuing firearms licences is structurally incapable of filtering out those who harbour hidden destructive intentions. Screening during the registration of firearms has proved futile. Previous attacks on people in the same shop did not lead to the licence being revoked. The system failed.

Here, however, we must refrain from oversimplification. The people’s right to resist tyranny remains a fundamental principle of constitutional theory and international legal tradition. The question is not whether a citizen has the right to defend themselves, but whether the state is capable of responsibly managing the circulation of weapons in conditions of hybrid warfare, social trauma and the psychological instability of the population. The answer provided by this tragedy is – not yet.

NEGOTIATIONS, DE-ESCALATION AND COMMUNICATION FAILURE

For around 40 minutes, negotiators attempted to establish contact with the attacker, but he did not respond. “He did not make contact. I did not hear him,” noted the head of the negotiation unit at the Kyiv National Police.

This is a key detail that requires separate analysis. Forty minutes is both a long time and a short time. For negotiators, this is a relatively brief period in tactical terms. But the very fact of a complete lack of any response from the attacker indicates not only his pathological determination, but also a fundamental problem: were these forty minutes used with genuinely professional techniques for engaging a person in crisis? Does our police force even have the necessary level of training for negotiators capable of working with people who have crossed a psychological threshold?

Today, a dangerous mindset prevails among some Ukrainian police officers: ‘Shoot First – Sort It Out Later’. This mindset has gained further momentum in a wartime environment, where violence is normalised and the right to use force is interpreted far more broadly than provided for by law and human rights standards. The Kyiv tragedy, like many before it, risks becoming not a catalyst for reform but a confirmation of this flawed logic. Meanwhile, the ECtHR consistently emphasises that when assessing the lawfulness of the use of lethal force, account must be taken not only of the actions of the perpetrators but also of all the surrounding circumstances – in particular, planning and control (Mikhalkova and Others v. Ukraine, para. 36; McCann and Others v. the UK [GC], para. 150). The legislative and administrative framework must clearly define the limited circumstances in which law enforcement officers may use firearms, and police officers must not be left in a state of uncertainty regarding these limits (Soare and Others v. Romania, para. 129).

The true measure of police effectiveness is the ability to resolve critical situations without resorting to lethal force. It is in this direction that modern policing is developing in democratic countries, where officers acquire skills honed over years in de-escalation, psychological influence and – only in extreme cases – the use of weapons. The ECtHR in Soare and Others v. Romania explicitly stated that the absence of clear rules and proper training explains the inadequate and autonomous actions of police officers in critical situations (para. 135). And in Celniku v. Greece, the Court held that Article 2 of the ECHR covers not only the direct actions of police officers but also staff training: if the level of training does not correspond to the complexity of the tasks at hand, the state bears responsibility.

NEUTRALISATION OF THE ATTACKER: ARTICLE 2 OF THE ECHR AND THE RIGHT TO LIFE

Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko stated that KORD special forces carried out a raid and neutralised the attacker. During the assault, the perpetrator resisted law enforcement officers and opened fire on them.

In the acute phase of a crisis, when a person is actively shooting at police officers, the use of lethal force is formally justified even under the strict standards of Article 2 of the Convention.

The ECtHR, in cases such as McCann and Others v. United Kingdom, Nachova v. Bulgaria and Finogenov v. Russia, has consistently developed the criterion of ‘absolute necessity’: the state is obliged to prove that the person’s death was the result of force that did not exceed what was absolutely necessary in the specific circumstances. At the same time, as explained in McCann and Others v. the UK [GC] (para. 200), the use of force is justified only where the agents genuinely believed that opening fire was necessary and had subjectively sufficient grounds for doing so — rather than merely following orders.

The standard of ‘absolute necessity’ is stricter than the criterion of ‘necessary in a democratic society’ under Articles 8 and 11 of the ECHR: force must be strictly proportionate (Jaloud v. the Netherlands [GC], para. 199; Kelly and Others v. the UK, para. 93). In a situation involving the rescue of a hostage from an armed criminal offering active resistance, these conditions may be met — but this still requires verification.

But this is precisely where the issue begins that most commentators prefer to sidestep. The state is obliged to conduct an effective independent investigation into whether there really was no other tactical option. Were all possibilities for a non-violent resolution of the situation exhausted? Was the timing of the assault correctly chosen? Is every shot fired by KORD officers documented and justified? The ECtHR in Al-Skeini and Others v. the UK [GC] (para. 163) and Armani Da Silva v. the UK [GC] (para. 233) clearly stated: the investigation must cover not only the immediate actions of those carrying out the operation but also the planning and control of the operation as a whole; it must be capable of establishing whether the use of force was justified. Any shortcoming that undermines this capability constitutes a violation of the procedural aspect of Article 2 of the ECHR. A telling example is the case of Finogenov and Others v. Russia (Operation ‘Nord-Ost’), where the Court found a violation precisely because of the incompleteness and bias of the investigation.

In the context of Ukraine during a full-scale invasion, a public demand for an investigation into the circumstances of the death of a man who had just killed six civilians sounds critically unpopular. But this is precisely the essence of the rule of law: Article 2 of the ECHR protects the right to life not only of the criminal’s victims, but also of the criminal himself. Without this principle, the entire human rights framework becomes a situational compromise of the majority, rather than a system of universal guarantees. Article 2 of the ECHR imposes a positive obligation on the state not only to refrain from the intentional deprivation of life, but also to take preventive measures to protect persons within its jurisdiction (Yuriy Illarionovich Shchokin v. Ukraine, para. 35). A general legal prohibition on arbitrary deprivation of life becomes ineffective without an effective review procedure: this is precisely how the Court formulated it in Giuliani and Gaggio v. Italy [GC] (para. 249) and Al-Skeini and Others v. the UK [GC] (para. 163). Andronicou and Constantinou v. Cyprus demonstrates that even a hostage rescue operation resulting in the death of a perpetrator may be deemed lawful – but only provided that planning was carried out with a view to minimising risk, negotiations were conducted rationally, and the operatives had clear instructions to use only proportionate force (para. 194).

Furthermore, there is a purely practical argument: a lieutenant-colonel in the Russian Armed Forces who had lived in Ukraine, made donations to the ‘SVO’ and ultimately carried out a mass shooting – this was a source of information of exceptional value to counter-intelligence. His motives, connections, possible handlers and funding channels could all have been established during interrogations. His elimination has permanently shut down that channel.

THE DANGER OF ‘SECURITY’ DISCOURSE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

This tragedy will inevitably give rise to legislative initiatives. Some will be aimed at tightening controls on the circulation of weapons — and this is justified and necessary. But others — and this is where alarm bells should ring — will use this incident to justify expanding the police apparatus, intensifying preventive surveillance and legalising ‘proactive’ operational measures.

This mechanism is well known in human rights practice: a terrorist attack or large-scale crime becomes a ‘window of opportunity’ for the state to expand its powers in areas where citizens would not normally permit such intrusion. Laws passed ‘in the heat of the moment’ are, as a rule, not repealed even after the shock has passed.

The right to private and family life, guaranteed by Article 8 of the ECHR, the right to the protection of personal data, the right not to be subject to preventive police surveillance without sufficient grounds – all these guarantees are under threat whenever society experiences a sudden surge of fear. The standard of ‘necessary in a democratic society’ under Article 8 of the ECHR is less stringent than the criterion of ‘absolutely necessary’ under Article 2, but even this does not permit the state to introduce widespread preventive surveillance without individual grounds and judicial oversight. The task of the human rights community, the legal profession and the academic community is to ensure that a single tragedy does not become a justification for systemic restrictions on rights that will affect millions of people who have no connection whatsoever to the crime.

POLICE TRAINING

A dangerous trend that has long been brewing within the Ukrainian police has now gained new momentum: a readiness to use weapons before establishing the facts. The tragedy of 18 April risks becoming not a warning but a justification for this logic – and it is currently extremely difficult to assess the true scale of such a shift.

That is precisely why this case must serve as a compelling argument in favour of a systematic review of police training – but not in the direction of improving marksmanship or physical skills. We are talking about something fundamentally different: training officers in the art of communication, the ability to defuse tension in real time and the professional application of de-escalation techniques.

The true measure of the effectiveness of a modern police force is the ability to resolve critical situations without violence. The shift from a punitive model to one of dialogue and professional restraint is not romanticism but a practical necessity. This is where the future of Ukraine’s law enforcement system lies.

CONCLUSIONS

This tragedy presents a multi-layered challenge. For society, it is a call for restraint amidst emotional pressure and the temptation of simplistic answers. For legislators, it is a challenge to draft regulations that genuinely enhance safety without becoming instruments of punitive bureaucracy. For the police, it is a mirror in which they must see not their own heroism but their systemic shortcomings in training, de-escalation and tactical flexibility. For human rights defenders, it is a reminder that the protection of human rights cannot be conditional: either it applies to everyone, or it does not exist as a principle.

Six families are mourning their loved ones. This is an undeniable reality, and it takes precedence. But the appropriate response to these deaths is not a new wave of police aggression or a flurry of emotional legislation – it is a systematic, dispassionate and honest analysis of where the system failed, and how to fix it without losing our humanity.

The Spark: Mayor’s Assassination

The protests were catalyzed by the November 1st assassination of Uruapan Mayor Carlos Manzo, who was shot while attending a Day of the Dead festival. Manzo had been vocal about demanding tough action against drug cartels terrorizing Mexican communities. Demonstrators honored his memory by carrying banners reading “We are all Carlos Manzo” and wearing cowboy hats in tribute.

Escalating Violence

The situation deteriorated when protesters dismantled barriers protecting the National Palace, where Sheinbaum resides. Police responded with tear gas, and authorities arrested 20 people on charges including robbery and assault, according to Mexico City security chief Pablo Vazquez.

Political Tensions

President Sheinbaum has attributed the protests to right-wing political opposition, claiming they were funded by her critics. Days before the march, she suggested the demonstration was being promoted by bots online, questioning the authenticity of the grassroots movement while affirming support for freedom of expression.

Sheinbaum’s Balancing Act

Despite maintaining approval ratings above 70% in her first year, Sheinbaum faces mounting pressure. She has made progress on fentanyl-trafficking enforcement—a priority for U.S. President Donald Trump—but resists calls for an all-out drug war, citing the bloody failures of previous administrations’ approaches.

The protests highlight growing frustration with Mexico’s ongoing security crisis, even as the president attempts to chart a different course than her predecessors in addressing cartel violence.

Election and Unrest

On October 29, President Samia Suluhu Hassan secured a second term with an overwhelming 97–98% of the vote, in an election widely criticized as undemocratic. Key opposition leaders, including Tundu Lissu, were barred from running and later detained on treason charges. Protests erupted across major cities such as Dar es Salaam, Arusha, and Mbeya, fueled by anger over the exclusion of opposition candidates and allegations of ballot stuffing.

Authorities responded with curfews, an internet blackout, and a heavy security presence. Witnesses and rights groups report that security forces used live ammunition and tear gas against demonstrators, resulting in widespread casualties.

Allegations of Secret Disposal

Chadema says it has documented 2,000 deaths, including more than 100 party members, and accuses police of dumping hundreds of bodies at undisclosed locations. “Most bodies are still at hospitals, and the police are stopping people from taking them away,” said Brenda Rupia, Chadema’s communications director. “The police have thrown away over 400 bodies. We don’t even know where they’ve taken them.”
Independent verification remains difficult due to the six-day internet shutdown and restrictions on media coverage. However, reports from local lawyers and human rights defenders suggest targeted killings in politically active regions, with some victims allegedly taken from their homes and executed.

International Reaction

The African Union (AU) condemned the election as failing to meet democratic standards, citing ballot stuffing, politically motivated abductions, and the internet blackout. Its observation mission concluded that the environment was “not conducive to peaceful conduct and acceptance of electoral outcomes.”
Human Rights Watch described the government’s response as “violent and repressive,” urging authorities to end the use of lethal force and ensure accountability. The organization documented reports of point-blank shootings and arbitrary killings in multiple regions.

Foreign governments, including Canada, Norway, and the UK, issued a joint statement expressing concern over “credible reports of a large number of fatalities and significant injuries.”

Government’s Position

President Hassan acknowledged “loss of life” during her inauguration but provided no figures. Officials have warned citizens against sharing images that “cause panic,” threatening treason charges for those circulating photos of bodies online.

On October 28, 2025, a large-scale police operation took place in the Complexo do Alemão and Complexo da Penha communities, reportedly aimed at enforcing some 100 judicial warrants against individuals linked to organized criminal groups. According to official information, at least 121 people were killed, including four police officers. Some 81 people were detained.

For decades, the high lethality associated with policing in Brazil has become normalized, particularly in areas like Rio de Janeiro, where it has recently increased significantly. Brazil must break the cycle of extreme brutality and ensure that law enforcement operations comply with international standards regarding the use of force.

Türk called for prompt, independent, and effective investigations into Tuesday’s events and for a comprehensive policing reform.

Independent mechanisms should also be established to support the families and communities affected to help them access justice and reparation.

Türk urged the authorities to adopt a national policing strategy rooted in a human rights-based approach. Any use of potentially lethal force must be aligned with the principles of legality, necessity, proportionality, and non-discrimination. Lethal force may only be used when strictly necessary to protect life or prevent serious injury from an imminent threat.

Addressing systemic racism against people of African descent in Brazil is paramount.

According to the International Independent Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in Law Enforcement (EMLER), the killing of people of African descent by law enforcement in Brazil is not only generalized but is also carried out in a systematic way. An estimated 5,000 people of African descent are killed by the police each year. Young men of African descent living in impoverished areas are the main victims.

“It is time to end a system that perpetuates racism, discrimination, and injustice,” said the UN Human Rights Chief.

“Reforms are urgently needed to avoid repetition. Violations cannot go unpunished. Proper accountability processes must lead to truth and justice to avoid further impunity and violence.”

While Trump did not specify which incidents prompted his statement, allegations of genocide against Nigerian Christians have been circulating in some right-wing US circles in recent weeks. However, violence monitoring organizations report no evidence that Christians are being killed at higher rates than Muslims in Nigeria, a country with roughly equal populations of both faiths.

Nigerian Response

Daniel Bwala, an advisor to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, stated that both leaders share a commitment to fighting “all forms of terrorism against humanity.” He acknowledged that any disagreements about whether violence targets Christians exclusively “or in fact all faiths and no faiths” would be addressed during an upcoming meeting between Trump and Tinubu.

President Tinubu has maintained that religious tolerance exists in Nigeria and emphasized that security challenges affect people “across faiths and regions.”

Trump’s Warning

In a Saturday social media post, Trump announced he had instructed the US Department of War to prepare for “possible action.” He threatened to send military forces into Nigeria “guns-a-blazing” unless the Nigerian government intervenes, warning that all aid to what he termed “the now disgraced country” would be terminated.

“If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!” Trump wrote.

Secretary of State for War Pete Hegseth responded to the post, confirming: “Yes sir. The Department of War is preparing for action. Either the Nigerian Government protects Christians, or we will kill the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.”

A massive raid on a drug-trafficking gang in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday sparked shootouts that left at least 60 suspects and four police officers dead, officials said.

The operation included officers in helicopters and armoured vehicles and targeted the notorious Red Command in the sprawling low-income favelas of Complexo de Alemao and Penha, police said.

At least 81 suspects were arrested, while 93 rifles and more than half a ton of drugs were seized, the state government said, adding that those killed “resisted police action.”

The operation was one of the most violent in Brazil’s recent history, with human rights organisations calling for investigations into the deaths.

African Americans and police brutality

Americans of all races, ethnicities, ages, classes, and genders have been subjected to police brutality.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, for example, poor and working-class white people expressed frustration over discriminatory policing in northern cities. At about the same time, Jewish and other immigrants from southern and eastern Europe also complained of police brutality against their communities.

In the 1920s many urban police departments, especially in large cities such as New York and Chicago, used extralegal tactics against members of Italian-immigrant communities in efforts to crack down on organized crime.

In 1943 officers of the Los Angeles Police Department were complicit in attacks on Mexican Americans by U.S. servicemen during the so-called Zoot Suit Riots, reflecting the department’s history of hostility toward Hispanics (Latinos).

Regular harassment of homosexuals and transgender persons by police in New York City culminated in 1969 in the Stonewall riots, which were triggered by a police raid on a gay bar; the protests marked the beginning of a new era of militancy in the international gay rights movement.

And in the aftermath of the 2001 September 11 attacks, Muslim Americans began to voice complaints about police brutality, including harassment and racial profiling. Many local law-enforcement agencies launched covert operations of questionable legality designed to surveil and infiltrate mosques and other Muslim American organizations in an effort to uncover presumed terrorists, a practice that went unchecked for at least a decade.

Notwithstanding the variety among groups that have been subjected to police brutality in the United States, the great majority of victims have been African American. In the estimation of most experts, a key factor explaining the predominance of African Americans among victims of police brutality is antiblack racism among members of mostly white police departments. Similar prejudices are thought to have played a role in police brutality committed against other historically oppressed or marginalized groups.
Whereas racism is thought to be a major cause of police brutality directed at African Americans and other ethnic groups, it is far from the only one.

Other factors concern the unique institutional culture of urban police departments, which stresses group solidarity, loyalty, and a “show of force” approach to any perceived challenge to an officer’s authority. For rookie officers, acceptance, success, and promotion within the department depend upon adopting the attitudes, values, and practices of the group, which historically have been infused with antiblack racism.

Because African Americans have been the primary — though certainly not the only — target of police brutality in the United States, the remainder of this article will deal mainly with their experiences, both historically and in the present day.

The Great Migration

Interactions between African Americans and urban police departments were initially shaped by the Great Migration (1916–1970) of African Americans from the rural South into urban areas of the North and West, especially following World War II.

Most white communities, including white police departments, were unaccustomed to the presence of African Americans and reacted to their increasing numbers with fear and hostility, attitudes that were exacerbated by deeply ingrained racist stereotypes. Reflecting the beliefs of many whites, northern police departments acted upon the presumption that African Americans, and especially African American men, possessed an inherent tendency toward criminal behavior, one that required constant surveillance of African Americans and restrictions on their movements (segregation) in the interests of white safety. Accordingly, by the mid-1950s many urban police departments had implicitly reconceived their missions as essentially that of policing African Americans — i.e., protecting whites against Blacks.

The forms of police brutality to which this situation gave rise were variable and generally not limited to physical assault (e.g., beatings) and excessive use of force. They also included unlawful arrests, verbal abuse (e.g., racial slurs) and threats, sexual assaults against African American women, and police homicides (murders of civilians by police). Police were also sometimes complicit in drug dealing, prostitution, burglaries, protection schemes, and gun-smuggling within African American neighborhoods.

Although police brutality against African Americans had become a serious problem in many urban areas by the mid-20th century, most whites remained unaware of it until about the mid-1960s, in large part because most large-city newspapers (whose readerships were primarily white) did not consider it newsworthy. In contrast, incidences of police brutality were regularly covered in the Black press from the early 20th century, frequently in front-page articles. Likewise, local and national civil rights organizations collected thousands of affidavits and letters from African Americans documenting their direct experiences of police brutality.

Police brutality after World War II

For a variety of reasons, incidences of police brutality against African Americans became more frequent and more intense throughout the country in the decades following World War II. First, the victory of the forces of democracy in the war overseas created among African Americans expectations of greater freedom and democracy at home, especially as many of them had served in combat in the U.S. armed forces (albeit in racially segregated units).

As Black Americans began to assert their formal rights and liberties, demanding that they be respected by local governments, judiciaries, and law-enforcement agencies, their demands had the effect of reinforcing the tendency of white police officers to view themselves as protectors of white communities.

Second, the migration of rural whites to nearby cities in search of better economic opportunities encouraged police to view their own violence against African Americans as a more acceptable means of control than the mob hysteria that rural whites had been accustomed to and that urban spaces simply did not allow. In effect, police brutality replaced lynchings as a means of oppressing Blacks.

During this period, white supremacist and terrorist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens’ Council operated openly in Southern cities, where police brutality against African Americans was abetted by government and political leaders, district attorneys, and judges, among others.

Third, in other cities, especially in the North, the flight of whites to the suburbs and the natural growth of the African American population made African Americans more visible and allowed them to be more mobile within formerly white areas.

Such demographic changes made African Americans as a group appear more threatening to white police officers and allowed the latter to more easily justify extralegal tactics as a means of controlling African Americans’ mobility and limiting their use of public spaces.

Fourth, beginning in the 1970s, African Americans who had joined local police forces in large numbers as a result of aggressive recruitment and affirmative action programs themselves committed serious acts of brutality against African American civilians, in part because they wished to be seen as “good cops” and to be otherwise accepted within their departments.

Finally, the escalation of urban crime rates in the 1970s and ’80s, including in predominantly African American and other minority neighborhoods, strengthened the perception among white police officers and whites generally of African Americans as inherently criminal, a trend also reflected in a newly racially charged political and policy discourse, referred to by critics as the criminalization of the Black poor and working class.

Police brutality and race riots

From the 1960s, police brutality was a catalyst for many of the race riots (riots caused by racial dissensions or hatreds) that took place in urban America, including the Watts Riots of 1965 and the Detroit Riot of 1967. In 1980 the Liberty City section of Miami erupted over the police killing of an unarmed African American man.

During a period of three days, 18 people were killed and some 1,000 arrested, and more than $100 million in property damage was committed.

Twelve years later the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers and their subsequent acquittal on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and excessive use of force triggered the Los Angeles Riots of 1992, still considered the worst race riots in American history.

During a period of four days, more than 50 people were killed and more than 2,300 were injured, and property damage was estimated at about $1 billion.

In 2014 the fatal shooting of an unarmed African American teenager, Michael Brown, by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, and a grand jury’s subsequent decision not to indict the officer on criminal charges provoked rioting in that city.

Later race riots (along with peaceful demonstrations) followed the deaths in police custody of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland (2015), and George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota (2020), both of whom were African American.

Antibrutality campaigns

Most victims of police brutality, including not only African Americans but also whites and other ethnic groups, have come from the ranks of the poor and low-income working classes. They have consequently lacked significant political influence or the financial resources that are sometimes necessary to effectively publicize complaints of police brutality.

Nevertheless, antibrutality campaigns have been mounted in nearly every major U.S. city with a sizable Black population. In sometimes large demonstrations, members of victimized communities have demanded, in addition to an end to police brutality and accountability for guilty officers, major reforms including the hiring of more African American police officers and the placement of more African American officers in supervisory positions, racially integrated patrols or Black-only patrols in African American neighborhoods, civilian review boards, and federal investigation (e.g., by the Justice Department) of egregious cases of police brutality. Their tactics have included sit-ins, boycotts, picketing, and close monitoring of police activity, including (from the late 20th century) by means of videos taken with handheld cameras and mobile telephones.

In 2013 the acquittal of George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Florida, on charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager, led to the founding of a powerful social movement, Black Lives Matter. The movement subsequently played a prominent role in nationwide protests following extreme acts of police brutality against African Americans. In retaliatory attacks in 2016, five white members of the Dallas, Texas, police department and three police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, were shot and killed.

Antibrutality campaigns tended to be led by activists at the grassroots level and by other members of the communities directly affected rather than by more-established civil rights organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Urban League, whose memberships were drawn primarily from the Black middle class.

Indeed, Black middle-class support for antibrutality protests was often limited, largely because, like their white counterparts, middle-class Blacks generally favored tough crime-fighting measures to protect themselves and their property from Black criminals. Because they were relatively inexperienced as leaders, however, antibrutality activists often used direct and confrontational methods, preferring street protests over negotiations.

And because they generally lacked an institutional base and a clear strategy, they were often reactionary, acting in an ad hoc fashion and creating organizations and developing constituencies as the need arose.

Despite such limitations, they were usually effective, because they articulated the anger of their constituencies, who were generally suspicious of electoral politics (“the system”) and who had no faith that Black politicians would adequately address their concerns.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the detainees were arrested under administrative law for attempting to obstruct traffic illegally. A young woman who reportedly climbed onto a police car and verbally confronted officers was charged with hooliganism – a criminal offense.

Administrative penalties are a fast-track form of justice left over from the Soviet Union’s which after a recent amendment allows quickly imprisoning someone for up to 15 days.

The protest, which began around 8 pm, saw demonstrators lying down on the street and chanting “Fire to oligarchy”, as police repeatedly ordered them to move to the sidewalk. Officers formed a cordon in front of the parliament building to prevent further attempts to block the road. Traffic was later restored, though the rally continued on the adjacent sidewalks.