Protecting freedom of peaceful assembly. A political participation tool also during COVID19
2nd and 3rd December 2020 Novact organised “Protecting freedom of peaceful assembly: A political participation tool also during COVID19”, a two-day conference in which representatives of the European Parliament and European civil society met to discuss and exchange positions on the importance of protecting the right to protest both in the context of COVID19 and in non-pandemic contexts.
More than 60 organisations participated in the conference, which included the following panelists:
Thais Bonilla, Novact
Giada Negri, European Civic Forum
Marco Perolini, Amnesty International
Vivian Kube, Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte e.V. (Germany)
Tea Jarc, President of the trade union Mladi Plus (Slovenia)
Francesca Fanucci, ECNL – European Center for Not-for-Profit Law.
Carlotta Besozzi, Civil Society Europe
Miguel Urban, Member, European Parliament
Birgit Van Hout, Regional Representative for Europe, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Anaïs Franquesa, Defender a quien defiende (Spain)
Marta Lempart, Polish women strike (Poland)
Arie Alimi, LDH – Ligue des droits de l’Homme (France)
Alexandrina Najmowicz, European Civic Forum
Niovi Ringou, Head of the Justice Policy and Rule of Law Unit, DG JUST, European Commission
Daniel Freund, Member, European Parliament
Anna Júlia Donáth, Member, European Parliament
The first working session was protagonised by civil society organizations around Europe: “Towards an European Srategy to defense the right to protest from the grassroots up”.
The second day the conference “European venues to protect the right to peaceful assembly” was hosted by Miguel Urbán, European Parliament representative, and it counted with the participation of key international and European institutional actors, such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the European Comission, together with civil society networks and organisations from around Europe.