Who protects the rights of those entrusted with protecting everyone else's rights? Police personnel do not surrender their human rights when they put on a uniform. They retain their rights to life, dignity, physical safety and fair treatment. Their professional obligation to exercise restraint does not mean they must silently endure physical assault, humiliation or threats. Does the right to protest give the cockroaches, politicians and their stooges the right to intimidate those on duty to maintain law and order? A functioning democracy must protect the freedom to assemble, dissent, question authority and challenge government decisions. These freedoms are particularly important when the government itself is the subject of criticism. But peaceful protest and violence are not interchangeable expressions of dissent. Accountability can’t be a one way street! We rightly demand that police personnel exercise restraint, even under provocation. With every assault case that we have seen in the recent protests, it’s important to know whether the affected officers were provided with proper investigation, medical and psychological support, legal protection. Where is the individual accountability for perpetrators? How can we forget that the policewoman being assaulted while performing her duty is also a citizen. She has a family, a life outside her uniform, and the same fundamental human dignity as the people confronting her. Human rights cannot be conditional upon which side of a barricade someone stands on. We speak frequently about the right to dissent. Perhaps we should speak equally seriously about the responsibility to dissent as well. Not because dissent should be polite or convenient to those in power. Effective dissent is often uncomfortable, disruptive and deeply challenging. But because a democratic society depends on citizens recognising that exercising their own freedom does not erase the freedom and dignity of others. The distinction between discomfort, disruption, harassment and violence must remain clear. The deeper issue, therefore, isn't whether we should support protesters or police personnel. It is whether we can build a culture in which we defend rights consistently, including when doing so is inconvenient to our own sympathies. The one question we all must ask ourselves is: Have we become so invested in defending our rights that we are gradually forgetting how to respect the rights of others? And this is not just in the context of protests, but in the larger conversation about what responsible citizenship means in a democracy.