It’s not really a good time to have convictions, is it? It’s even less propitious if you have the temerity of actually doing something to defend them. On Monday, Atma Shanto, the chairman of the Fédération des Travailleurs Unis (FTU) and eight other people were arrested in front of Parliament for staging a peaceful protest against the sacking of an employee of La Plantation hotel. The police initially charged them with holding an illegal gathering this despite the fact that the relevant legislation, the Public Gathering Act, specifi cally stipulates that this transgression only applies to a crowd of twelve people or more. So what did our mathematically-challenged men in blue do when they realized their “mistake”?

They simply charged them with obstructing free passage of pedestrians, even though they were doing nothing of the sort. They’re truly in poor form if that’s the best they can come up with. Sadly, this episode doesn’t even qualify for top spot in the pantheon of ridicule. That accolade goes to those who arrested Jayen Chellum and Eddy Sadien in January last year when the latter shaved the former’s head. Their crime? Littering... no, really. One wouldn’t mind such zeal if it were applied indiscriminately, but as anyone who’s been alive for a few hours can tell you, litterbugs hardly seem to be at the top of the Mauritius Police Force’s (MPF) list of public enemies. So, unless its goal is to emulate the Keystone Cops - the bumbling baton-wielding policemen that help make silent films such a lark - the MPF has to realize that it can’t arrest people first and come up with offences afterwards. It’s not just unseemly, it’s also ethically dubious.

This phrase from an opinion piece in the Guardian about the crushing of the Occupy Wall Street movement hits unerringly close to home. “In times of economic and democratic crisis, it makes sense for faltering governments to use police violence and the threat of arrest to bully citizens into compliance.” The police should be wary of being used towards such ends. They also have to accept that these people aren’t protesting for the fun they’re doing it because they feel that all other avenues for redress have been exhausted. And that’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it? Everything has become so outrageously politicized that it’s well-nigh impossible for anti-establishment types to obtain due process, especially if their grievances importune those in power. The deck is so obviously stacked against them that they feel they have no other option than to take to the streets.

And because we live in a democracy, they have the right to do so. As long as they exercise that right peacefully, it’s really not the job of the police to cook up crimes simply because they can or have been asked to by politicians. If, on the other hand, they really insist on coming up with creative excuses to arrest people, they can raid Parliament and take everybody in on a charge of taking the people for a ride. Alternatively, they can arrest real criminals you know, murderers, rapists, drug smugglers and their ilk.