Imagine you are peacefully protesting an issue you care about. Suddenly, you hear the shooting of rubber bullets. Tear gas is everywhere; you can barely see. A police officer comes and throws you to the ground. They zip-tie your hands behind your back and shove you into a police van. This is what thousands of people in America have been experiencing over the past year whilst expressing their beliefs that Black Lives Matter. It is unjust that BLM protestors and journalists in America are being arrested in such high numbers because, according to the universal declaration of human rights, article 20: everyone has “freedom to join associations and meet with others in a peaceful way.”

The high number of arrests are unjust because the First Amendment of the USA “guarantees freedoms concerning religion, expression, assembly, and the right to petition”. Andrea Sahouri is a journalist who was wrongly arrested in Iowa while doing her job. She described it as “a stressful and traumatic experience”. She fought in court for approximately ten months, or 304 days, before her charges were finally dropped. This is just one example of an unjust arrest, one of about 14,000 that have taken place during the BLM protests. 

It is also worth comparing the arrests of those in BLM protests against the violent and destructive demonstrations from when Trump supporters stormed Capitol Hill. “Black Lives Matter protesters... found themselves facing a massive show of military force… When a mob of President Trump's supporters broke into the US Capitol… they were confronted by a far smaller police presence” - CNN. This is absurd because the protests - many called them riots - at Capitol Hill were an attack on the centre of America’s democracy. At the same time, it is estimated that about 93% of all BLM protests have been peaceful and non-violent. This could mean that the police officers arrested thousands of people just because the protestors were saying something that they disagreed with.

A final reason as to why this is unjust is that in a democracy, the people are the ones who use their voice to elect a government. Therefore, it is ironic that they are being arrested for voicing concern for their community. Ruby Anderson, a peaceful protestor arrested in Philadelphia, said: “While I was arrested, I was standing next to two white people… I was the only one arrested in my group of three, and I was the only black person,” This demonstrates how some police are biased, which supports the idea that these people are being arrested because of the issue they are peacefully fighting for.

In conclusion, the number of arrests taking place during the BLM protests are unjust. The numbers of arrests in protests for other issues do not come close to the number of arrests during the BLM protests. This doesn’t make sense because some of the other demonstrations have been violent and dangerous, and the vast majority of the BLM protests have been peaceful. People should feel free to protest peacefully on any issue, though obviously, this is not happening. Police should be facilitating such peaceful protests, not putting protestors in danger.