A/HRC/19/40 the competent institutions of the State had a duty to design operating plans and procedures that would facilitate the exercise of the right of assembly. 20. Mr. Canton pointed out that IACHR considered that the purpose of regulating the right to peaceful assembly could not be to create the basis for prohibiting the meeting or the demonstration. On the contrary, regulations requiring, for example, advance notice, existed for the purpose of informing the authorities so that they could take measures to facilitate the exercise of the right without significantly disturbing the normal activities of the rest of the community. 21. Mr. Canton stressed that public protests could only be limited in order to prevent serious and imminent risks for the safety of the persons involved or third persons and only after attempting to prevent the supposed risk by changing the original condition of the protest; for example, by changing the time at and date on which it would take place. In order to prevent an inadequate intervention in a public protest by State forces – which could result in violation of human rights – the State had the duty to guarantee that police forces were aware of their rules of conduct and had the professional training needed to perform in situations involving mass concentrations of people, so as to create the conditions that would enable those events to unfold in accordance with the established regulations and without infringing upon other human rights. 22. IACHR had highlighted that if it became necessary to intervene in a protest because violence had occurred, it should be the exclusive competence of the police forces, duly trained, to control the situation and never of the armed forces; and if it became necessary to resort to physical means to face disturbances of public order, the members of the State’s armed forces and security bodies would use only those means that were indispensable to controlling the situation in a rational and proportional manner, and respecting the rights to life and to humane treatment. In its report on the situation of human rights defenders in the Americas,1 IACHR listed a series of administrative controls that should be established by States to ensure only exceptional use of force in public demonstrations, in cases where it was necessary, through measures for planning, prevention and the investigation of cases in which an abuse of force might have occurred. 23. IACHR considered that when it became necessary to impose restrictions on that form of expression, the State should conduct a rigorous analysis of the interests it intended to protect by way of the restriction, taking into account the high level of protection merited by the right to assembly and the freedom of expression as rights that gave form to citizen participation and the oversight of State actions in public matters. Although on certain occasions the exercise of the right of assembly might affect the routine of a place or other rights that deserved protection from the State, such as freedom of movement, the Commission considered that those alterations were part of the mechanics of a pluralistic society, where diverse interest coexisted, which could sometimes contradict each other, but that had to be able to find the spaces and channel to express themselves. Lastly, the Commission was aware of the increasing use of criminal law against those who participated in public protests and who were accused of perturbing the public order or even of perpetrating other crimes, when in reality they were asserting their rights in a peaceful manner. 1 IACHR, document OEA/Ser.L/V/II.124, Doc. 5 rev.1, para. 68. Available from www.cidh.oas.org/countryrep/Defenders/defenderstoc.htm. 7