How to start a riot

"You Must be From Away" has an entertaining account of the policing of the Republican Party convention in Mainz (that's Germany's far right nutters, not the far right nutters in the American White House).

No fireworks there, but where riots do occur at such events, my view is that the authorities often create problems for themselves by over-zealous security measures. Protesters want to be seen and heard by those they are protesting against, to make their anger felt. So long as they can achieve this, most of them will be content to shout their slogans and wave their banners peacefully.

However, politicians are so paranoid today (not surprisingly when you consider how heavily their guilty consciences must weigh on them) that they invariably seek - as at most recent WTO conferences, for example - to have protests swept away out of sight and hearing (if not banned altogether, as in London this past Monday) to a remote "designated protest zone" miles away from the action, so they will not have to be reminded of their own culpability. Deprived of the opportunity to get their message across to the delegates and/or the public, some of the protesters will inevitably try to break through police cordons to get closer to the meeting, leading to clashes and sometimes full scale rioting. So whose fault is that?