A/HRC/20/27 on what [website] content should be blocked must be undertaken by a competent judicial authority or a body which is independent of any political, commercial, or other unwarranted influences” (para. 70). 3. The right to be protected from undue interference (a) Positive obligation 33. The Special Rapporteur stresses that States have a positive obligation to actively protect peaceful assemblies. Such obligation includes the protection of participants of peaceful assemblies from individuals or groups of individuals, including agents provocateurs and counter-demonstrators, who aim at disrupting or dispersing such assemblies. Such individuals include those belonging to the State apparatus or working on its behalf. The organizers and stewards of assemblies should not assume this obligation. The Special Rapporteur believes that such responsibility should always be explicitly stated in domestic legislation, as it is in, inter alia, the Republic of Moldova, Serbia and Slovenia. In Armenia, organizers may request police officials to remove provocateurs from the assembly venue (even if in practice the implementation of this provision is reportedly sometimes problematic). The Special Rapporteur holds as a good practice the establishment in Estonia of a Police Rapid Response Unit (riot police) which aims at protecting peaceful demonstrators against attacks by provocateurs and counter-demonstrators and is trained in how to separate the main provocateurs from peaceful demonstrators. 34. The Special Rapporteur expresses his utmost concern in relation to peaceful assemblies that were either not allowed or violently dispersed in a number of countries, such as in Bahrain, Belarus, China, Egypt, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Malawi, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and the Syrian Arab Republic. 21 35. The right to life (art. 3 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and art. 6 of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) and the right to be free from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (art. 5 of the Declaration and art. 7 of the Covenant) should be the overarching principles governing the policing of public assemblies, as stated by several countries. In this regard, soft law provisions – the Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials (in particular articles 2 and 3) and the Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials (in particular principles 4, 9 and 13) – aim at guiding law enforcement officials when policing peaceful protests. In this connection, the Inter-American Court on Human Rights stated that the “pretext of maintenance of public security cannot be invoked to violate the right to life … the State must ensure that, if it is necessary to resort to physical means ... members of its armed forces and its security bodies will use only those means that are indispensable to control such situations in a rational and proportional manner, and respecting the rights to life and to humane treatment”.22 The Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions also stated that “the only circumstances warranting the use of firearms, including during demonstrations, is the imminent threat of death or serious injury” (A/HRC/17/28, para. 60). With regard to the use of tear gas, the Special Rapporteur recalls that gas does not discriminate between demonstrators and non-demonstrators, healthy people and people with health conditions. He also warns against any modification of the chemical composition of the gas for the sole purpose of inflicting severe pain on protestors and, indirectly, bystanders. 21 22 10 See, inter alia, reports on summaries of individual cases raised by special procedures mandate holders, and on observations on communications transmitted to Governments and replies received, as well as press releases issued by such mandate holders and high-level United Nations officials. Inter-American Court of Human Rights judgement, Caracazo v. Venezuela (2002), para. 127.