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A mass arrest occurs when
police The police are a Law enforcement organization, constituted body of Law enforcement officer, persons empowered by a State (polity), state, with the aim to law enforcement, enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citize ...
apprehend large numbers of suspects at once. This sometimes occurs at
protest A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration or remonstrance) is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one. Protests can be thought of as acts of cooper ...
s. Some mass arrests are also used in an effort to combat
gang activity A gang is a group or society of associates, friends or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collecti ...
. This is sometimes controversial, and lawsuits sometimes result. In police science, it is deemed to be good practice to plan for the identification of those arrested during mass arrests, since it is unlikely that the officers will remember everyone they arrested.


Historical examples

The Japan Farmers' Union and Japanese labor-farmer groups were hit by mass arrests in the 1920s. On April 16, 1929, several thousand members of the farmers' movement were arrested. Following
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, mass arrests (over 120,000) of actual and suspected Quislings occurred in
Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...
.
Totalitarian Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and reg ...
regimes have sometimes conducted mass arrests as a prelude to a
purge In history, religion and political science, a purge is a position removal or execution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, another organization, their team leaders, or society as a whole. A group undertak ...
of perceived political enemies, sometimes through executions. On March 10, 2010 a mass crackdown was initiated to thwart a planned peaceful 'million march' to be conducted in a South Indian state capital of Hyderabad demanding formation of a new federal unit, more than 100,000 Telangana people were taken in to custody by a police force controlled by the coastal 'andhra' elites. The 2010 G-20 Toronto summit was witness to the largest mass arrest in
Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
history.


Mass arrests of protesters in the United States

In December 1964, the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...
was disrupted by a mass student
sit-in A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more people occupying an area for a protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change. The protestors gather conspicuously in a space or building, refusing to mo ...
in the administration building and by mass arrests of 700 students. Beginning on May 3, 1971, three days into the 1971 May Day Protests - a series of large-scale
civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". H ...
actions in Washington, D.C. - massive arrest sweeps begin. In a few days over 12,000 are arrested - the largest mass arrest in U.S. history.Page 5 "Vietnam Demonstrations: 1971 Year in Review, United Press International Accessed 2009-04-13.
Former American President
Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he previously served as th ...
said in regards to the racial conflicts of the time, "I would be opposed to mass arrest, and I would be opposed to preventive detention. But I think that the abuses in the past have in many cases exacerbated the disharmonies that brought about demonstrations, and I think that arrest or large numbers of people without warrants ... is a contrary to our best systems of justice." A famous mass arrest occurred on September 27, 2002, in
Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morg ...
in which several hundred anti-
World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...
/
International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster glo ...
protestors, journalists and bystanders were systematically arrested by police and charged with failure to obey a police order. A
class action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...
lawsuit against the government ensued. Pre-emptive mass arrests have also sometimes been criticized. Over 1,700 protesters were arrested during the
2004 Republican National Convention The 2004 Republican National Convention took place from August 30 to September 2, 2004 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York. The convention is one of a series of historic quadrennial meetings at which the Republican candidates fo ...
in New York City. On October 1, 2011, more than 700 protesters with the
Occupy Wall Street Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was a protest movement against economic inequality and the influence of money in politics that began in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Wall Street financial district, in September 2011. It gave rise to the ...
movement were arrested while attempting to march across the bridge on the roadway. On January 28, 2012, more than 400 people were arrested at Oakland. During a seven-day span on Capitol Hill, from April 11 through April 18, 2016 police arrested approximately 1,240 people (300 arrests were made on April 18 alone) who were demonstrating for reforms to how Americans vote and campaign in elections. On November 4, 2020
646 protesters were arrested on Highway 94 in Minneapolis
.


War crime

Indiscriminate mass arrests were designated a war crime in 1944 by a commission on war crimes created by the London International Assembly. Thar was one of two items added by that Commission to the list of war crimes that had been drawn up by the Commission on the Responsibility of the Authors of the War and on Enforcement of Penalties in 1919. Specifically, "indiscriminate mass arrests for the purpose of terrorizing the population" were designated as war crimes by the commission. At the Netherlands temporary court martial in 1947, several members of the tokkeitai in the
Netherlands East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised Factory (trading post), trading posts o ...
were accused of the war crime of indiscriminate mass arrests. The applicable legislation, used by the court, was the NEI Statute Book Decree #44 of 1946, whose definition of war crimes paralleled the commission's list. Specifically, item #34 of the enumerated list of war crimes under the NEI legislation was "indiscriminate mass arrests for the purpose of terrorising the population, whether described as taking hostages or not". The court understood the definition of such unlawful mass arrests to be as "arrests of groups of persons firstly on the ground of wild rumours and suppositions, and secondly without definite facts and indications being present with regard to each person which would justify his arrest". It added commentary on indiscriminate mass arrests that are for the purpose of terrorizing the populace by stating that they "contained the elements of systematic terrorism for nobody, even the most innocent, was any longer certain of his liberty, and a person once arrested, even if absolutely innocent, could no longer be sure of health and life".


See also

* Arbitrary arrest and detention *
January 2021 arrests of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists On 6 January 2021, 53 Hong Kong pro-democracy activists, former legislators, social workers and academics were arrested by the National Security Department of the Hong Kong Police Force under the national security law over their organisation ...


References

{{Reflist, refs= {{cite book, title=Individual responsibility in international law for serious human rights violations, volume=21, series=International studies in human rights, author=Lyal S. Sunga, author-link=Lyal S. Sunga, publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, year=1992, isbn=978-0-7923-1453-0, pages=25–26 {{cite book, title=Law reports of trials of war criminals, volume=1–5, author=United Nations War Crimes Commission, author-link=United Nations War Crimes Commission, isbn=978-1-57588-403-5, publisher=Wm S. Hein Publishing, year=1997, chapter=Trial of Shigeki Motomura and 15 others, pages=138–145 Criminal justice Crowd control Political repression