Protestors Meet Pepper Spray in Occupy Wall Street Rally

The women in this picture had just been pepper sprayed in the face by the New York Police Department while protesting at the Occupy Wall Street Rallies. Occupy Wall Street is a rally that wishes to push the financial sector to make financial reforms. They claim to know that the 'real power' is not in Washington, D.C. It is your typical protest (except larger), in which people carry banners and signs, yell a bit, and walk back and forth between two points. Peaceful enough and nothing illegal. Yet, last Saturday the NYPD corralled and pepper sprayed several protestors at the Occupy Wall Street rally, all while arresting eighty people for disturbing the peace. I may be looking at this wrong, but last I checked it was perfectly legal and, dare I say it, encouraged that the people assemble and protest in a democratic system. The NYPD has countered that the group did not have a marching permit and were doing so against the law. The problem with the police reaction to the protestors is that the protestors they pepper sprayed were young women carrying signs that were in no way threatening the officers. It seems that the police officers were also being over brutal in their arrests of people, tackling and shoving down protestors, who were unarmed, to cuff them. This, to me, seems very sketchy and the department is investigating it, but I worry that it will get swept under the rug.

Many people would wonder how this is a human rights violation and I can understand this sentiment, but it in fact is a violation of human rights and our own democracy. The right to peaceful protest is a human right and well as a democratic right. These people were not being violent and, though some did fight back when being arrested, they did not deserve the treatment they received from the NYPD. Another human right broken was the right to freedom from violence. These people did not infringe on anyone else's rights by marching and protesting. They did not deserve to incur such a violent reaction to their protests.

I, personally, cannot believe that all this has happened.

Something that is so engrained in the American psyche is now being violently oppressed in our own country. The history of the United States is that of rising up against things that were not right in our society and by now you would think that people would understand that and it would be upheld as the right it is. But it is not. This is one of the most absurd human rights violations I have seen in the Untied States. The right to peaceful protest should not be something we are still working the kinks out of in this country. We are supposed to be a role model for the rest of the world and, yet, we are still doing things like this to our own citizens when they decide to disagree with the government/private sector. I can't make good sense out of why the NYPD felt the need to mace the protestors or why they seemed threatened enough by the people to tackle them before arresting them. These people are UNARMED. The best they could do is hit you with their sign or scream in your face, excessive force is unneeded.

My question to you is do you think that the police were justified? Do you think that protests like this should be so regulated? Is the right to assembly and protest not the democratic right we thought it was?