Club Lunch: Peaceful Demonstrations: Who Had The Idea, and Why Do We Hold Them?

Speaker: Paul Harris, Barrister & Senior Counsel
Founder, the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor

Crowds and riots were as old as humanity, but peaceful demonstrations were fairly new in history.
Mr. Harris, one of the world’s leading experts on the history of demonstrations, explained how the peaceful demonstration idea started independently in China and in England, how it spread round the world, and how eventually the right to hold peaceful demonstrations was recognized as a human right. He also talked about why some demonstration movements succeed while others fail, and about when civil disobedience was justified.

Paul Harris was a barrister in England and in Hong Kong, and a Hong Kong Senior Counsel. He had represented clients in many high profile human rights cases. Paul was the founder of the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales, and of the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor. He had just published  “ Raising Freedom’s Banner – how peaceful demonstrations had changed the world” .