In 2019 a group of activists in Finland tried to stop a new mine from being opened by, among other things, blocking the road to the site, and stopping the mining equipment from being used by standing on top of it. They were arrested and all of them are being prosecuted now. It is illegal in Finland to force someone to do something or stopping someone from doing something by the use of violence or intimidation, without the proper legal authority to do so. The maximum possible sentence for this (in the worst cases) is two years in prison.
In the interim time, almost immediately after having been arrested in 2019, all of these people were issued restraining orders: They were not allowed go to any of the sites of the mining company.
You see, here in Finland, at least so far, the police actually enforces the law. "Protesting" does not somehow liberate you from the responsibility of following the law. Breaking the law does not somehow become less criminal if done in the name of "protesting". Here the police does not simply stand by just watching from the sidelines while people are breaking the law, no matter how much of a "protest" it may be. Criminal activity is criminal activity, no matter what your motivations for doing it, and you will get arrested.
This is much different from the United States where the police will often literally just watch while people are blatantly breaking the law in front of them, in their full view, with the police doing nothing about it.
Right at this moment literally tens of thousands of people in the United States are blatantly breaking the law in public, not even trying to hide or anything, in full view of the authorities, and these authorities are doing absolutely nothing about it. For example in Portland literally thousands of people have been rioting, vandalizing, destroying property, committing arson and a big bunch of other serious crimes, and they have been doing it every single day for two months now, and the police has done absolutely nothing about it. In most places the police is actually literally watching over the riots, which is happening in their full direct view, and they are doing nothing about it.
This would never, ever be allowed in Finland. If police officers were to fail at their duty, fail at stopping and arresting criminals, fail at protecting people and their property and rights, these police officers would certainly be themselves prosecuted for blatant failure of duty and complicity in the crimes that they have witnessed and deliberately ignored.
Not so in the United States. Not only do police officers blatantly, egregiously and willfully fail at upholding and enforcing the law, but moreover absolutely nothing is done to them as a consequence. These police officers face no consequences for their deliberate complicity in these crimes. They are not investigated, they are not arrested, they are not prosecuted. Absolutely nothing happens to them.
The entire law enforcement system in the United States is corrupted to the core, all the way from the lowest traffic cops up to the highest government.
At least Trump is trying to do something about the riots, but even his attempts are quite weak. For example in Portland, as of writing this, as far as I know less than a hundred people have been arrested, from the literally thousands that are continuing to break the law every single day in broad daylight in front of everybody.
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