Freedom of Assembly in Non-Democratic Regimes: Shifts in Policing Methods to Peaceful Protest as an Indication of Political Regime Change in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus

As demonstrated across the literature on policing, there is an over-emphasis on policing in western democracies. Although there is a plurality of work within the field of policing studies that touch upon public order policing, policing of protest and police engagement this focus confined to democratic regimes. Additionally, a typology of policing in democratic societies has been produced yet this typology has yet to be agreed upon or shared between theorists. Della Porta (1998), arguably one of the leading authorities in social movement research, argues that throughout Europe there has been a progressive shift towards a softer style of policing, but the contemporary literature on the subject has yet to establish why collectively Europe is seen to have assimilated towards a progressive policing model, and if the assimilation could transcend to other states throughout the continent. This research into the policing method used throughout hybrid regimes in their response to peaceful protests will help contribute to the evolving conversation in the policing studies discipline.

3. Regime Trajectory

Using data collected from a variety of international NGOs and democracy monitoring organisations, we can identify the characteristics, changes and developments of the political regime within Russia, Ukraine and Belarus between 2007 and 2019. Understanding the regime dynamics within these countries is imperative to fulfilling the research hypothesis as if we can first establish if a regime has experienced a change or not, we can then look to see if any changes in policing response coincide to the change in dynamics. Democracy monitoring organisations are seen to be an important indicator of potential changes in a regime's dynamics, but they are often measured through a variety of different methods and thus often cannot be consolidated into a single unified dataset. Therefore, this chapter has sought to reflect upon a range of data from some of the most established democracy monitoring organisations and have chosen: The Fragile State Index, the Economist Intelligence Units Democracy Index and Freedom House. The information has also been supplemented by a selection of other country-specific databases.

Democracy Indices Overview

The Economist Intelligence Units Democracy Index The 2006 to 2019 data scope reflects the available data of the Economist Intelligence Units Democracy Index. (EIU Democracy Index) is based on an assessment from a group of experts on issues including: a countries electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation and political culture and unlike other indices, the democracy index prescribes a regime classification to the polity under examination (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2020). The regime typologies used by this index include full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime and authoritarian regime. In comparison to other regimes, the democracy index prescribes increased importance to public opinion and attitudes.

Freedom House The 1999 to 2018 data scope reflects the available data of the Freedom House Freedom Ranking. monitors and reports on the key thematic issues of democracy, political rights and civil liberties. The Global Freedom Scores data reflected upon within this research are produced through the amalgamation of expert analysis on issues of political rights and civil liberties. Political rights are based on aspects of the electoral process, the functioning of government and some additional supplementary discretional questions (Freedom House, 2020). Civil liberties are based on the quality of freedom of expression and belief, associational and organizational rights, the rule of law, personal autonomy and individual rights (Freedom House, 2020). The response provided through the analysis of the expert community is used to provide an aggregated score that reflects the overall freedoms within the country. A score of 3,4 or 5 indicates that the state protects civil liberties or strongly protect some civil liberties while neglecting others (Freedom House, 2019). A score of 6 indicates that a state heavily restricts civil liberties, and strongly limits the right of expression and association and frequently hold political prisoners.

The Fragile State Index (FSI) The 2006 to 2018 data scope reflects the available data of the Fragile State Index. is a yearly research report that seeks to evaluate and codify 12 indicators of the potential risk and vulnerability a state may face. The 12 indicators are grouped thematically and include political, social, economic and cohesion factors. Due to the increased scope of the analysis provided by the FSI only a selection of relevant indices has been used within this research to demonstrate the regime trajectory of the case study countries. The indicators selected include C1: Security apparatus, P1: State Legitimacy, P3: Huma rights and the Rule of Law. C1: Security apparatus considers the factors including the professionalisation of the police, the presences of political violence and accusations of police brutality. P1: State legitimacy reflects the openness of the political sphere and the manifestation of political opposition including through protests and riots. and P3: Human Rights and Rule of Law seeks to assess if there is the widespread or systematic abuse of rights and freedoms including the repression of political opponents and journalists.

Regime Trajectory Russia

Through reviewing the three indices of: The Fragile State Index, The Economist Democracy Index, Freedom House and the supplementary dataset of the Lankina Russia Protest Event Dataset a number of assumptions about the Russian regime can be drawn.

Using the data provided by The Economist Intelligence Units Democracy Index, a number of conclusions can be drawn about the typology of the Russian regime. Prior to 2012, Russia was defined by the Economist Intelligence Unit as a hybrid regime and thus defined Russia to have a “government that apply pressure on political opposition, non-independent judiciaries, widespread corruption, harassment and pressure placed on the media, anaemic rule of law” (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2015). After 2012 with the `long process of regression' that formed with the widely condemned election of Vladimir Putin, the EIU democracy index changed its classification of the Russian regime and identified it as an authoritarian regime. This new characteristic indicated that “political pluralism has vanished or is extremely limited. These nations […] may have some conventional institutions of democracy but with meagre significance, infringements and abuses of civil liberties are commonplace” (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2015). As indicated within Figure 1 the progressive decline in score shows that Russia had gone through a continuous process of democratic backsliding over a number of years but 2012 was the year in which the shift in regime dynamics finally occurred. Significantly, 2012 was the year of the Bolotnaya Square protests, one of the most prominent events of protest mobilisation in recent Russian history.

The importance of the Bolotnaya square protests and its influence upon the regime dynamics within Russia is further indicated within the other indices included in the paper. The data provided within the Fragile State Index in Figure 3 demonstrates how between the years of 2011 and 2014 the regime underwent a period of dramatic securitisation, consolidation of human rights and decline in legitimacy. The security apparatus score is in part determined by the professionalisation of the police, the presence of political violence and accusations of police brutality and had increased from a score of 6.8 in 2011 to a score of 8.5 in 2014, indicating a dramatic and worsening police response within the country. I would seek to argue that due to the corresponding timeframe between the worsening of the security apparatus score and the Bolotnaya Square protests, that there is a significant correlation between the two and that this negative decline is therefore due to a change in policing tactics. This indication of the consolidation and restriction of rights is further affirmed within the data provided by Freedom House who identified a shift in civil liberties and overall freedom ranking after 2014, the year that the Bolotnaya Square protests had finished, further indicating that a regime shift had occurred.

In addition to being able to make some conclusions about the overall regime dynamics of Russia, the understanding of the Russian regime can also be supplemented by the Lankina Russia Protest Event Dataset The 2006 to 2013 data scope reflects the limitations of data of the Lankina Russia Protest Event Dataset. (LAruPED). The LAruPED is a human coded index of protests across Russia from March 2007 until 2013. The limitation of this research is its limited timeframe and that it only allows us to view repression through the binary codification provided but through the isolation of data on political protest within Moscow a number of key observations can still be made. The first interesting observation is that the number of protests was higher in the years of federal elections than in years without (see Figure 6). Additionally, despite observing a continuing overall decrease of protest as demonstrated in figure 6 through the negative trend line, the frequency of political protests within Moscow have stayed consistent. This shows that the dominate protest typology in Moscow is overwhelmingly political protests. Alternatively, when looking at the repression levels, overall the level of repression has stayed consistent but the number of political protests being repressed has seen an increase over the years highlighting the often-disproportionate focus of police action within Russia.

Ukraine Regime Trajectory

Similar to the Russian regime, through the comparative analysis of different regime indices, we can start to draw a number of conclusions regarding the trajectory and dynamics of the regime in Ukraine.

As previously established, the Economist Intelligence Units Democracy Index is the only democracy indices amongst the three being used within this thesis that attempts to denote the specific regime typology. Prior to 2012 the EIU democracy index defined the Ukrainian regime as a flawed democracy and therefore denotes that within the country their `elections are fair and free and basic civil liberties are honoured but may have issues (e.g. media freedom infringement and minor suppression of political opposition and critics) (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2015). The EIU democracy index data shows that after 2012 a shift in the regime dynamics occurred and as a consequence changed the regime classification to hybrid regime. Significantly the data shows a continued reduction in rights and freedoms within Ukraine that culminated in 2014 with Ukraine being attributed its worst score on record.

The significance of 2014 is further highlighted within the Fragile State Index data on Ukraine shown within Figure 4. The data clearly indicated that after 2010 up until 2014 there was a progressive worsening of all three indices Furthermore the 3.2 point increase of scores between the years of 2014 and 2015 for the data on the Ukrainian security apparatus suggests a very clear and significant change occurred within the states security apparatus. This change in score attributed to the security apparatus indices would be in part due to the increased allegations of police brutality and the use of militia forces during the 2014 Euromaidan protests. Subsequently, the maintained high score attributed to the security apparatus indices may be related to the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine in the years after the Euromaidan protest.

Similarly, this conclusion of the continuous decline in democratic characteristics of the Ukraine state is supported again by the data provided by the Freedom House Freedom Ranking. The data shown within the Figure 2 indicates that a regression of freedoms and civil liberties occurred within Ukraine since 2010 until its eventual improvement after 2014. This data is significant to the overall understanding of the Ukrainian regime as it affirms the democratic backsliding that occurred after the 2010 election and the improvement that occurred within the regime after the Euromaidan and the subsequent removal of the sitting government.

Belarus Regime Trajectory

Unlike the previous two regimes in which the data provided by the democracy monitoring organisations indicates that a clear and substantiated shift in regime dynamics occurred, the data on Belarus indicated that the regime dynamic stayed stable and consistent throughout the years of 2007 to 2019. Using the data provided by the Economist Intelligence Units Democracy Index we can affirm that Belarus was consistently designated as an authoritarian regime. Despite Figure 1 showing that there had been some minor changes within regime behaviour, this was not significant enough to have warranted a change in regime typology.

This observation of a clear and consistent regime dynamic within Belarus is further supported by data provided by the Fragile State Index. Through examining the scores attributed to the state security apparatus, state legitimacy and human rights and the rule of law we can see that overall there has been little to no significant change, with the Fragile State Index only indicating that only a 1 point change occurring between the start and end of the data. The single biggest change that occurred within the data was within the human rights indicator between the year of 2006-2007 that could have reflected the arrest of more than 60 activists who were involved in planning Belarus's Freedom Day that year (New York Times, 2006). This continued evidence of a single regime dynamic that has been observed within the data provided by the Fragile State Index and The Economist Intelligence Units Democracy Index is also supported by data shown in Figure 2 by the Freedom House. Similar to the other case study countries, the Freedom House data only allows for limited analysis but we can observe from the data that Belarus consistently maintained its restriction on civil rights until 2016 when it demonstrated an increased tightening on the remaining civil liberties' within its country until Freedom House deemed there to be no civil liberties left within the country as shown by the score of 7.

Conclusion and Findings on Regime Trajectory

Through a careful examination of three core international democracy monitoring datasets (with an additional complementary data set for Russia) we have been able to make a number of observations about the regime trajectory and dynamics within the three case study countries of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus between the years of 2007-2019.

Primarily the data provided within this chapter has allowed us to make a decisive conclusion regarding the specific regime typologies of each country since 2007.

Within Russia, the data affirms that a change occurred within the country between a hybrid regime and authoritarian regime. Its indicated that this shift in regime dynamic occurred sometime between 2011-2014. Using additional data sets as shown within Figure 1, 2 and 3 we can indicate that his change more precisely is indicated to have occurred within 2012. Importantly, this indicated regime change corresponds to the Bolotnaya Square protests, a major protest event that occurred when Moscow and thus indicates that this period warrants further exploration and study.

Additionally, as shown within Figure 1, 2, and 4 Ukraine saw two shifts in regime dynamics occurring. The first shift occurred within 2010, a shift that was indicated by the continued consolidation of rights and freedoms that coincided with the change of presidency after the 2010 Ukrainian elections. The second and arguably more decisive shift in regime dynamics shown by Figure 1, 2, and 4 occurred in 2014-15 reflecting the large state-wide upheaval that resulted in the Euromaidan protests. Thus, through the use of these datasets, a single event has potentially been identified that corresponds directly to the change in regime behaviour.

Alternatively, the data on Belarus clearly indicates that the regime has not undergone any change in regime dynamics and thus has constantly stayed as an authoritarian regime. Within the present datasets, there is some indication of mild changes within the regime, but this is not consequential enough to have had any impact on the overall regime dynamics of the country.

Through examining Figure 2 we can also observe a convergence of regime dynamics between Russia and Belarus. The data by Freedom House shows that in 2018, the civil liberties and freedom ranking of both countries were the same. This shows a significant shift on part of the Russian regime considering that when the data started in 1999, Freedom House affirmed that Russia was upholding and protecting some civil liberties. Almost 20 years later, Russia is now identified by the Freedom House as having no civil liberties and consequently having a similar regime dynamic to a regime that is regularly described as `Europe's last dictatorship' (Washington Post, 2017). Considering that the Russian regime still seeks to uphold the pretence that it has free and fair elections and works in the interest of its population to uphold rights and liberties, the new ranking by Freedom House would have been a damming blow to that narrative.

4. Regime Focusing Events and the Corresponding Shifts in Policing Response and State Policy Towards Freedom of Assembly

political regime police protest

As previously indicated, there is substantial evidence to suggest that between 2007 - 2019 there have been measurable shifts in the regime dynamics of Russia and Ukraine. As indicated within Figure 1, 2 and 3 the shift of the Russian regime occurred between the years of 2011-2013. Alternatively, in Ukraine, Figure 1, 2 and 4 show that the most significant shift in regime dynamics occurred between in 2013-2014. In absence of a focusing event for the shifting regime dynamic, an alternative discussion will be provided on how the Belarusian government maintains its authoritarian regime. These discussions will later be used to further investigate if the focusing event can additionally correspond to a shift in state policy towards freedom of assembly, and an overall shift in regime dynamics.

Focusing events within Russia

As displayed through Figures 1-5, we can conclude that between the years of 2007 to 2019 a significant shift within the Russian regime occurred between 2011 - 2013 that subsequently correlate to the large wave of protests within Moscow between the same years. The 2011-2013 Russian protests referred to hereinafter as the Bolotnaya Square Protests were described as a “watershed moment, ending years of quiet acceptance of the political consolidation Mr Putin introduced” (New York Times, 2012). This watershed moment of protest mobilisation was initiated in response to the mass allegations of manipulation Members of Russian political parties complained of organised `carousel voting' for the ruling United Russia Party. The OSCE election monitors recorded multiple violations of international election standards and independent monitoring group Citizen Observer argued that the regime had fraudulently attained 17% of their votes. within the 2011 elections (Baryshnikov, 2016). Even though allegations of electoral or administrative mishandling were not uncommon in Russia, unique to 2011 was the heightened levels of dissatisfaction amongst the general public. Prior to the start of the protest cycle, in 2011 38% of Russians reportedly had “little hope for their future”, indicating that whilst previously Russia had been immune to large scale mass protests (Robertson, 2013), increasing disenfranchisement of the public and allegations of mass corruption turned the tide and became the pretext for one of the largest cycles of protest previously recorded in Russia (BBC, 2011). The Bolotnaya Square Protests managed to encapsulate the concerns of a huge proportion of the public as demonstrated by the range of protest participants. No longer confined just to the young or liberal, the Bolotnaya Square Protest represented a significant change in the mobilisation of the Russian public with solidarity shown across the economic divide and more uniquely across the political divide (Lankina 2015). Initially mobilising under the banner of `For Fair Elections” the overtly political demands of equality, rights and justice (Robertson, 2013) were additionally supported through an almost opposing section of the protest who mobilised against Putin's alleged indifference towards the Russian ethnic majority (Popsecu, 2012).

Due to the increasing curtailing of fundamental rights and the progressive restrictions that the regime had placed on the right to freedom of assembly (Lankina and Voznaya, 2015), the first wave of protest mobilisation unprecedentedly saw 50,000 people take to the streets. The frequent mass protest that occurred over the next two years should be seen as both a critique against the ruling regime and also as a symbolic act of dissent (Rucht et al., 1999).

This paper does not attempt to present a detailed investigation into the entirety of the Bolotnaya Square Protest cycle but instead seeks to demonstrate how this protest came to represent a change in Russian regime dynamics and a subsequent change in state policy towards to freedom of assembly.

Following the internationally criticised parliamentary election of 2011, a mass protest in Moscow was announced for the eve of Putin's presidential inauguration. Dubbed the `March of the Millions' (Human Rights Watch, 2012), on May 6th, 50,000 people came to peacefully march towards Bolotnaya Square in what became one of the most significant protest events within recent memory within Russia. In reflection to the day of protest, Lenta.Ru (2012) claimed that “Moscow had not seen such large-scale street battles [between the police and the public] for twenty years”.

The police response to the protest events on May 6th indicated a very clear shift in tactics used by the police As seen within the Bolotnaya Square protests, in Russia three attributed law enforcement agencies are regularly deployed by the state during mass protests including: the Russian Police (Russian: полиция) that was previously known up until its reform in 2011 as Militsiya (Russian: Милиция), the Special Purpose Police Unit - OMON (Russian: Отряд Мобильный Особого Назначения - ОМОН) and the National Guard of Russia (Russian: Федеральная служба войск национальной гвардии Российской Федерации). Due to interconnected function of all three agencies in policing peaceful protests when broadly discussing the policing response to peaceful protest in Russia this thesis has not sought to distinguish between them. It is additionally the opinion of this research that the official state policy towards freedom of assembly in Russia would be reflected within the behaviour of all attributed law enforcement agencies. . Previously, prior to 2012 protests were policed with little to no violent interaction between the police and protests participants, and the regime was seen to be upholding many of the international guidelines on Freedom of assembly Including the OSCE Guidelines on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly . It was only until after this shift occurred that methods of indiscriminate violence was used. The excessive deployment of 12,800 police officers deployed from across Russia in response to the day of protests on May 6th, indicated how the regime shifted away from its previous policy of facilitation and underenforcement towards a policy of over-enforcement.

On the run up to the march of the million, Putin had announced that police and security forces would be deployed to deal with individuals participating in an illegal protest in Moscow or other cities (Goodman, 2011). The government additionally issued warnings that the police would be looking for Russian draft-dodgers and Moscow students had been ordered to attend university on Saturday for classes and exams during the time of protest This tactic of attempting to limit protest participating has been used frequently since 2011, with the regime routinely rushing to schedule large public events at the same time as major protests, conducting pre-emptive document checks and screening for protesters or announcing that they will look for `draft dodgers' (Meduza, 2019) (Elder, 2011).In an apparent attempt limit or restrict coverage of the protest, non-regime aligned independent media experienced an apparent coordinated DDOS A DDOS attack is a type of cyber-attack in which the perpetrator attempts to disrupt access to a website attack against them (Gazeta, 2012). In comparison to past protests in Russia, we can see how the range of methods used by the state to restrict or consolidate rights were an indication of their change in policy, but it was the actual actions on the day of the protest that marked the harshest crackdown on civil society since the end of the Soviet Union (Herman, 2016).

After the police implemented a blockade on Bolotnaya Square, a bottleneck of protesters occurred, with the frontline of the protests being increasingly constrained by the police cordon in front of them and the mass of protesters behind them moving forward. In response to the blockade, opposition leaders called a “sit-down political strike” singing famous revolutionary songs to the police in front of them, meanwhile communicating on twitter to bring food and water to the blockade indicating their intention to stay put (Human Rights Watch, 2012). Shortly after 6 p.m., a small group of protesters attempted to breach the police cordon, with some using force against the police. For the first time since the protests began in 2011, the police responded with indiscriminate force, striking protesters with police batons and arresting people on-mass. Condemnation was soon directed at the police for their refusal to target the individual protesters who had initiated the violence and instead attempted to repress the protest as a whole through violence and arrests. Shortly after, opposition leaders managed to reach the protest stage podium where they called on the protesters to stay in the square indefinitely, the police responded by swiftly dragging them off the stage and arresting them. Responding to the events of the protests, Hugh Williamson director of European and Central Asia for Human Rights Watch said they were concerned about “allegations of police brutality, including beatings and causing unnecessary pain and suffering” (Human Rights Watch, 2012a). The Guardian (2011) additionally reported that mobile internet within the protest area had been cut off to limit communications between protesters. The European Court of Human Rights affirms that even within an unauthorised peaceful protest, a degree of tolerance must be held by the authorities as the unsanctioned nature of the protest does not justify an infringement on freedom of assembly (Human Rights Watch, 2012b). This change in policing behaviour is therefore very clearly no longer consistent with the guidelines provided by the OSCE

Policy Response in Russia

Currently, the right to freedom of assembly is affirmed and protected through Article 31 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. Article 31 states “Citizens of the Russian Federation shall have the right to gather peacefully, without weapons, and to hold meetings, rallies, demonstrations, marches and picket” (Consultant.ru, 2019). While constitutionally protected, additional legal mechanism are used to control and regulate the right to freedom of assembly.

Within Russia, the primary legal mechanism used to control and regulate protest between the years of 1991 to 2004 was established by the Supreme Soviet in 1988. Two small amendments to this decree were introduced in the early 90s, but this decree was ultimately replaced in 2004 by Federal Law Number FZ-54 `on assemblies, rallies, demonstrations, marches and pickets' (Commissioner for Human Rights, 2011). The law stipulates that “this federal law is aimed at ensuring realization of the constitutionally mandated right of citizens of the Russian Federation to peaceful assembly” and upon its implementation additionally claimed that this federal law is “based on provisions of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the commonly recognised principles and norms of international law [and] international agreements of the Russian Federation” (Consultant.ru, 2019). Human rights groups additionally affirmed that upon its introduction the legal and policy framework relating to the right to freedom of assembly was generally compliant with international human rights standards and norms (Commissioner for Human Rights, 2011). The main provisions set out within the Federal Law was to outline the procedural aspect for holding a public event and the rights and obligations of state representatives regarding the authorisation, suspension or termination of events.

As established, the Law on Assemblies, Rallies, Demonstrations, Marches and Pickets was introduced in 2004, but more notably it was amended in 2012, just weeks after the focusing event of the Russian regime in May. The amended Federal Law FZ-54 mandates that an organiser of any public event must submit to the relevant authorities a notification of intent between three to ten days prior to holding the event. This federal law also legally permits relevant authorities to propose alternative time or venues for a public event but does not permit these authorities from denying an application. Whilst the framework sets out the legal duties for public events, it does not stipulate any legal provisions for spontaneous assemblies or single-person pickets. The 2012 amendment has been openly criticised by a number of rights-based organisations including The Council of Human Rights and Civil Society, developed under the President of the Russian Federation (Commissioner for Human Rights, 2017) as with its introduction it consequently shifted the state policy from with international norms to a policy observed to be infringing on the right to freedom of assembly.

Additionally, in 2012, the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation was also amended, further indicating the restriction of the Russian states policy towards freedom of assembly. The amendment to Article 212 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on Mass Riots introduced liability for calls to the mass riot but failed to articulate the legal definition of either call or riot, thus allowing for ambiguous interpretation of the law. This was also accompanied with the introduction of administrative liability for `public calls for massive simultaneous presence or movement of citizens in public places' (Consultant.ru, 2019). In practice, this amendment introduced the potential for a criminal case to be directed at any individuals advocating for, or sharing the place, time, goal, or information related to the preparation of a protest. This policy has evolved to not only allow authorities to target anyone disseminating any type of information regarding the protest and now hold them liable as a protest organiser.

Introduced in 2014, Federal Law number 65-FZ represented the next change in policy that was introduced to further restrict the rights of freedom of assembly. This law developed further legal obligation that protests organisers must adhere to and increased the threshold of fines for individual protesters breaking laws (Consultant.ru, 2019). In the subsequent month, the Russian government rapidly introduced another restrictive legislation through Federal Law No. 258-FZ. This entered into stature punitive measures against spontaneous public events including administrative detention for up to twenty days for the protest organisers. The final item of legislation that influenced the states official policy towards freedom of assembly was the Yarovaya Law. Introduced in 2017, the Yarovaya Law was a set of counter-terrorism measures (Nechepurenko 2016) that increased state surveillance powers and criminalised withholding specific types of information but was additionally widely condemned for the broader potential application of the law to stifle dissent (Human Rights Watch 2019; Зеновина. 2019).

In summary as this clearly demonstrates, after the focusing event of 2012, the regime implemented a clear policy that consistently restricted and consolidated the right to freedom of peaceful assembly. The continuous amendments to these laws, that coincide with both the change in policing tactics to peaceful protest and a shift in the overall regime dynamics, indicates that there is a clear link between these factors and the policy change.

Focusing events within Ukraine

Clearly demonstrated across all democracy indices previously discussed within this paper, a significant shift in the Ukrainian regime dynamic can be observed in 2014. The single event most reflective of this change in dynamic was the 2013-14 protest cycle most commonly referred to as Euromaidan. This is in reference both the cause and location of the protest Additional names include Euromaidan, the Euromaidan Revolution and The Dignity Revolution. These different names represent slightly different mobilising frames of the protest but to limit misunderstanding throughout this essay, this research shall only refer to the 2013-2014 protest cycle as Euromaidan. .

Despite Ukrainian social movement scholars historically focusing on issues of the labour movement within Ukraine (Marples 1991; Crowley 1997) the feminist movements (Martsenyuk 2005; Hrycak 2006; Phillips 2008; Zychowicz 2011) and activism by dissident groups (Zakharov 2004) the divergence of protest tactics, frames of mobilisation and policing response to the Euromaidan protest represented a shift in the conceptual and empirical discussions of protests. Prior to 2013, it was believed that due to the historically low levels of political engagement in Central and Eastern Europe (Pop-Eleches and Tucker, 2014) any mass protests in Ukraine would be confined to a so called `colour revolution' in which the concerns of the mobilising population would be limited to issues of electoral fraud (Levitsky and Way 2006; Beissinger 2007; Bruce and Wolchik 2011).

Similar to the protest event of Bolotnaya Square in Russia, this paper does not seek to provide a detailed account of the protest cycle or indulge in an interdisciplinary study of the protest actions. Instead, this paper will indicate how the events of Euromaidan can be viewed as a trigger event that corresponds to a shift in the overall regime dynamics, modes of policing response and policy change toward freedom of assembly.

Triggered by the decision of Ukrainian President Yanukovych not to sign the EU association agreement in November, the Euromaidan protests marked one of the most dramatic cycles of protest in Ukrainians history (Onuch and Sasse, 2016). Its believed that within the protest cycle of Euromaidan there were six distinct phases Phase 1, 21st - 30th November; phase 2, 30th November - 16th January; phase 3 16th - 27th Jan; phase 4, 27th January to 20th February; Phase 5, 20-22nd February and phase 6, 22nd February onwards. (Onuch and Sasse, 2016), with each phase representing a distinct period within the protest but as I shall demonstrate, we can observe a distinct change of the methods of police response occurring within the so-called first and second stage of protest.

The first shift in policing methods When discussing the policing response to peaceful protest in Ukraine, due to the interconnected relationship and role in policing protests that multiple law enforcement agencies have, this thesis has not sought to distinguish between them. The official state policy towards freedom of assembly is reflected in the behaviour of all areas of law enforcement that respond to peaceful protest. This research has identified the following attributed law enforcement agencies as being responsible for responding to protests: the Berkut (Ukrainian: Бемркут), the Internal Troops of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Внутрішні війська України)  and the Militsiya (Ukrainian: міліція). All three of these law enforcement agencies have since been disbanded as part of the Euromaidan reforms. Since 2015 the law enforcement agencies responsible for responding to peaceful protest in Ukraine has been the National Police of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Національна поліція України). that occurred within the Euromaidan protest and arguably set in motion the dramatic escalation in violent protest tactics, occurred on the 29th and 30th of November where a small group of peaceful protesters were violently attacked by the Berkut police. The indiscriminate and unprovoked violence against mostly student protesters and accompanying journalists (BBC, 2013) sent shockwaves across Ukraine. The actions on part of the police managed to unite the fractured protest identity into a single homogenous protest that now was mobilising under the single discourse of civic and human rights (Onuch and Sasse, 2016). Prior to the 29th of November violence directed at peaceful protesters was very uncommon within Ukraine, and thus this serious miscalculation on part of the state in an attempt to quell the protests actually ensured the continuation of the protest (Tucker et al. 2014; Metzger et al. 2015).

Whilst this paper is limited to establishing the shift in policing response to peaceful protest, consideration should additionally be paid to later protest phases in Euromaidan when there was a huge escalation in violence by both the police and protest participants. After the initial shift in policing methods on the 29th of November, the modes of state response to protest changed even more dramatically. Throughout the Euromaidan protest the tactics used by the state continued to evolve and develop, as indicated by the use of militia groups to accompany the police in their effort to control or subdue the protests. Video footage emerged showing the behaviour of the police and state-supported militia groups engaging in behaviour that potentially breaches international human rights standards including the prohibition of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. In a video published online from the 23rd January 2014, you can see the police parade around a man who had been stripped naked of his clothes, forcing him to have his photo taken with the police before he is then placed inside a police van. This form of public undressing and humiliation would clearly breach the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 3 on the Prohibition of Torture and other forms of Cruel, Inhumane and Degrading Treatment. An additional escalation of police behaviour was indicated by evidence of the continued targeting of `bystander' groups including journalists and medical personnel shown within video footage from the 22nd January 2014 that shows police threatening and aiming their firearms at uniformed red cross personnel.

Policy Response to Freedom of Assembly in Ukraine

In addition to the shift in policing response during the Euromaidan protests, we can also observe a corresponding change in Ukrainian policy towards freedom of assembly.

The legal framework of freedom of assembly is provided by Article 39 of the Ukrainian Constitution. This article affirms the right to freedom of assembly but establish this is not an inalienable right as this freedom pertains to a notification procedure and restrictions may be implemented through a court order (Pravo, 2017).

Apart from the `dictatorship laws' introduced and then repealed in 2014, the Ukrainian parliament has yet to enact a policy that restricts or regulates the conduct of protests. Having established that no new laws have been introduced to regulate freedom of assembly, the policy in Ukraine has alternatively been shifted through the use of the Ukrainian court system and the imposition of limitation that its legal judgement provides.

With a lack of legal framework outside of the 1996 Ukrainian Constitution, and the 1984 Code of administrative offences that set out the appropriate punitive measures for violating the notification procedure established in the Constitution (Legislatonline, 2019), it effectively fell to bodies of local self-government and the Ukrainian judicial system to exercise provisions and restrictions upon freedom of assembly (Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, 2016). Many international observers state that the decision of these courts to introduce restrictions, including introducing an authorisation procedure for assemblies opposed to the notification procedure the constitution sets out, had only extended and strengthened the power of the executive over freedom of assembly (Pravo, 2017). Having no legal body to refer to when making judgements on assemblies and protest, Ukrainian judges often used normative acts of the former USSR, including the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR `on the procedure for the organization of meetings, political rallies street events and demonstrations in the USSR' (Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, 2016). Often, in addition to referencing acts of the USSR, judgements of the European Court of Human Rights were also selectively quoted by the Ukrainian courts when passing restrictive judgement (Pravo, 2017). This practice of the Ukrainian judicial system being used to introduce change in lieu of official legislative change stopped after Euromaidan in 2014.

During the peak of the Euromaidan protests, on January 16th the Ukrainian government introduced a package of anti-protest laws collectively known as the `dictatorship laws' by scholars, media, NGOs and Euromaidan activists. The `dictatorship laws' were an amalgamation of ten laws that restricted freedom of speech and assembly. Amongst the legal provisions introduced was a “anti-mask law” that mandated up to 15 days in detention for any individuals who participated in a peaceful gathering wearing a face covering. Additionally, this policy change introduced penalties into the statute for blocking government buildings; allowed trial in absentia and extended amnesty to individuals who have committed crimes against protesters including to members of the Berkut or other law enforcement officials (Yanukovych, 2014).

In 2015, a law on “guarantees for freedom of peaceful assembly” was drafted and was widely celebrated as a positive effort to establish a clear and transparent framework to build upon the ambivalence of the regulation of peaceful assemblies found in the constitution (Pravo, 2017). This law is seen to be part of a wider effort by the Ukrainian state to uphold and protect the right to freedom of assembly, and more broadly is seen to indicate a further move away from the authoritarian dynamics that were developed during Euromaidan (Democracy Reporting International, 2018). The European Commission for Democracy, most commonly known as the Venice Commission published their response (Opinion No. 854/2016) to the draft law. It urged the government to make mild clarifications to the draft law including further defining the term `assembly' and introducing the concept of spontaneous assemblies (Venice, 2016). To date this has yet to be adopted, but despite a lack of formal policy, international monitoring organisations have broadly tracked an improvement in the right to freedom of assembly within Ukraine since 2014.

As demonstrated, through analysing the policy changes within Ukraine a number of assumptions can be made. A clear and decisive shift in policy occurred that heavily restricted the rights to freedom of assembly through the so called `dictatorship laws'. This change in law coincided with an overall change in regime dynamics and policing response. We can additionally observe that the shift away from an authoritarian regime dynamic back towards a hybrid regime also corresponded with the repeal of the so called `dictatorship laws' and the subsequent improvement of their policing response to freedom of assembly.

Focusing events within Belarus

Unlike Russia and Ukraine, the continued stability of the Belarusian regime indicates that an individual event that reflects both a shift in policing response; regime shift and a change in policy will not be present. The Belarusian regime has experienced several significant protest cycles but due to their limited impact on either the overall regime dynamics or on the states policy towards freedom of assembly, these events could not be considered a focusing event. Thus, in the absence of a focusing event a broader discussion shall be conducted on tactics used by the regime to ensure its continuation.

Between the years of 2007 - 2019 a number of positive developments did occur within Belarus including the release of political prisoners and the improvement of media freedom (Lahviniec and Papko, 2010), but as demonstrated within the regime monitoring indices these actions had little impact on overall regime trajectory. Additionally a change in policy of the European Union From 1997 to 2008 the EU perused an isolationist policy towards Belarus the placed visa restrictions and international sanctions on the country. After 2008, the EU changed its policy and sought to improve relations to further encourage development within areas such as human rights and civil liberties towards Belarus may in part be responsible for some mild improvements, but scholars have predicted that the substantial improvements of civil liberties and human rights that is needed to emerge Belarus out of an authoritarian regime dynamic, would not come under the current heavily centralised regime of Lukashenko (Lahviniec and Papko, 2010).

Across the last 16 years of power, Lukashenko has been carefully constructing a regime that mitigates against the potential for mass protest or any other events that may threaten the stability and longevity of the regime (Sharaibman, 2018).). In 2004 a constitutional referendum eliminated restrictions of a presidential term limit thus extended the reach and longevity of Lukashenko's control. Following the removal of term limits, Lukashenko attempted to further establish the power vertical by implementing a number of policy changes that allowed him to preside over the appointment and dismissal of city and district authorities, the directors of major factory's and the countries judicial system (Lenzi, 2002). President Lukashenko also takes steps to preserve his centrality of power by carefully vetted all bureaucrats and dismissing or sanctioning any person from inside the regime who might have built enough political capital to off centre his power vertical (Silitski and Pikulik, 2011)

Similar to many other post-soviet countries the civil society within Belarus is relatively weak, but unlike these other countries this has been deliberately fostered through the development of a client-patron relationship between the state and the society (Lahviniec and Papko, 2010).

Within Belarus, the state is the largest employer thus making much of the population dependent on the stability and generosity of the state for its income. Through closely tying the economic livelihood of much of the population to the state, the regime prevents them from protesting or becoming involved in political initiatives, through granting them a regular salary and job security (Lahviniec and Papko, 2010). This client-patron relationship is further demonstrated through the ability of the state to negatively influence the renewal of yearly labour contracts for employers or pushing for the expulsion of students within state-run higher education institutions if they express political dissatisfaction (Sharaibman, 2018, Libereco, 2017, Brooks, 2011).

Additionally to the risks to livelihood or educational success than joining a political protest might cause, the regime has been able to limit the likelihood of mass protests developing by ensuring there are significant bureaucratic obstacles to organise a protest including gaining permission from the local authorities prior to carrying out any mass activity (Human Rights Watch, 2017).

This continued process of restriction towards peaceful protest is further supported by extra-legal mechanisms of punitive harassment, violence or arrest that deters many people from joining and participating. Belarusian police and attributed law enforcement In Belarus there are three attributed law enforcement agencies that hold the mandate to respond to instances of civil unrest and protest. These include: the Militsiya of the Republic of Belarus (Russian: Милиция Республики Беларусь), the Internal Troops of the Ministry for Internal Affairs (Russian: Внутренние войска Министерства внутренних дел) and the Special Purpose Police Unit - OMON (Russian: Отряд Мобильный Особого Назначения - ОМОН). Due to the potential for all three agencies to respond in tandem to instances of peaceful protest in Belarus, when discussing the policing response this thesis has not sought to distinguish between them. It is additionally the opinion of this research that the official state policy towards freedom of assembly in Belarus would be reflected within the behaviour of all attributed law enforcement agencies. are routinely accused of preventing central protest figures or opposition leaders from reaching protest locations through lengthy document checks on personal ID documents or vehicle registration or simply arresting them prior to the day of the protest (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2017).

The Belarusian government as willing to use both carrots and stick to quell public discontent (Intellinews, 2017), meaning that the regime is often willing to take an adaptable approach in its response to protest. An example in this was in 2011 where after a sharp rise in petrol prices, drivers took to central Minsk, blockading the road claiming that their vehicles had broken down. The regime responded by arresting several participants but also briefly lowering the price of petrol, showing that in addition to punishing protest participants the regime would also temporarily meet the demands of the protesters. Six months after this protest another protest occurred in which the workers of a Belarusian mining company left their official union en masse in protest of delayed wage payment and joined a new independent union. The regime responded by firing the leaders of both the protest and the new independent union, but also paid the remaining workers their delayed wages and implemented a 50% pay rise (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 2012) What this demonstrates is that president Lukashenko is sensitive to threats to his power and will act swiftly if a potential challenge is seen to be upon the horizon. Between 2014 and 2015 during the time of the mass political upheaval within neighbouring Ukraine, the Belarusian regime appointed a new defence minister and a new secretary of the security council, both affirming a new direction of increased securitisation of the Ukrainian border and the modernisation of the military.