Are people in the UK and elsewhere free to protest? It seems to me that in the UK, they are not and never have been. Take the current environmental protest at Heathrow airport:
ENSIONS at Heathrow's climate camp escalated last night as demonstrators accused police of using heavy-handed tactics by holding protesters and blocking vehicles from entering the site.
Police stopped trucks carrying food to the camp and also held several demonstrators under anti-terror laws.
Or Walter Wolfgang, an 82 year old Jewish escapee from Nazi Germany who was manhandled out of a Labour party conference in 2005 for shouting 'nonsense' at Jack Straw, and who was then held under anti-terror legislation:
Headlines about an 82-year old Jewish escapee from the Nazis being manhandled out of Labour conference for daring to yell "nonsense" at the foreign secretary is probably not the way Tony Blair wanted to end this rally.
...
...
...
There have been a few examples of it in the recent past.
Most notably, the prime minister was mid-speech last year when a hunting protester attempted a freestyle heckle only to be instantly grabbed by "burly bouncers" and helped to the exit.
No-one who was there will forget the incongruity of the prime minister telling the man he was lucky to live in a free society where such things were allowed - just as he was being bundled out of the hall surrounded by stewards.
After being ejected Mr Wolfgang's pass was seized and he was detained under the Terrorism Act when he tried to re-enter the conference on Wednesday.
Then there's the miners' strikes of 1984-1985:
The Government mobilised the police (including Metropolitan Police squads from London) to attempt to stop further attempts by the pickets to stop miners who wanted to work (some claim this involved intimidation and violence). The government claimed these were to safeguard individual civil rights, many miners have seen this as class warfare, with the police as the 'special bodies of armed men' that Engels described. During the industrial action 11,291 people were arrested and 8,392 charged with offences such as breach of the peace and obstructing the highway. Former striking miners and others have alleged that soldiers of the British Army were dressed as policemen and used on the picket lines.