The key seems to be, in order to be high on the list do not have protests and uprisings in your country.
The occupy protests were peaceful and they generally did not break shops and vandalize things. There was no reason to treat them that way.
[1] e.g. if you surround a group of police and tell them you aren't going to let them leave until they release their prisoners, I'm not going to cry over you getting tear-gassed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhPdH3wE0_Y
"Get the music blaring and then march aimlessly, blocking traffic the whole way, for hours" *
I support the NYC Occupiers (I live in NYC) because they voice their cause while trying to minimize collateral disruption. If the NYC Occupiers were causing random destruction I would find it difficult to continue empathising.
The police should be gentler in their force escalation by issuing plenty of warnings and then gently arresting for short detainment (as a cool-down). But as another comment mentions, sometimes their hands are forced, e.g. SF and Seattle protesters hurling bricks. I would prefer an early crackdown than let the dynamic spiral beyond legitimacy as it did in London.
Temporary fix to the press problem may be the press wearing clearly identifying clothing. That dampens the police's excuse that they blend in with the hooligans (every protest, regardless of how legitimate, will attract its unfair share of these).
*http://www.portlandoccupier.org/2011/12/15/occupy-portland-o...
Breaking into homes and property destruction can in no way be regarded as peaceful protest. However, I don't see how you draw the connection in your first paragraph between breaking into homes and disrupting traffic. I do wonder what led people to break into homes in those settings, and why they're calling themselves (or others are calling them) Occupiers.
As for the press wearing distinguishing clothing, that strikes me as something that is ostensibly for a good cause, but is used for evil. For example, if reporters are wearing identifying clothing, that either gives the police an easier time removing all reporters before doing whatever it is they do, or gives protesters an easy way of masquerading as reporters to get greater access.
I agree regarding identifying press, but more so in terms of protesters donning it and this diluting the effect. I don't think the US is at the point of cattle-herding journalists yet.
In general, probably not, but I think we've already had enough exceptional cases to take notice. I seem to recall seeing a video of a reporter at a pre-Occupy protest surrounded by police and arrested in a parking lot, and reading about a few other cases where reporters were told by police to leave. I don't want to make a strong argument one way or the other, and this thread's probably long enough, so I'm not going to take the time to look up sources.
And honestly if you purposely block traffic, I won't fault a driver for forcing him past, even if it means that he runs you down.
I only commented on the ranking methodology. As for politics. We have 120 different countries on here with differing experiences; I'm not touching that issue on this thread
And in my opinion, that's a good thing. When there are no arguments, not even a statement of what exactly your point is, inviting discussion and what you say happens to be exceptionally uninformed and moronic, then yes, have at it with the downvotes because I don't need to read it. If the opinion would have any value whatsoever, somebody else is going to make it in an informed manner and back it with arguments.
> The key seems to be, in order to be high on the list do not have protests and uprisings in your country.
FWIW:
Let's assume, for the sake of argument you intended to say "violent protests" (regardless which side to blame for the violence, gov or protestors) as otherwise your statement is simply factually incorrect and any discussion may as well end here.
Assuming that, you're (deliberately?) confusing cause and effect:
Being high on the list gives rise to less (violent) protests and uprisings in your country.
And suddenly, given that people value freedom as one of the highest things, and will go through great lengths to achieve it, that makes perfect sense.
Yet we've slumped to 30th in the ranking.
Besides, Papua New Guinea has armed separatists, plus Port Moresby is one of the murder capitals of the world, yet it's 10 positions higher than the US.
That's off-topic though - the mining tax has left public discourse in the last year, but there's lots of noise about internet content filtering, plus according to the page about Australia on the press freedom index, there's lots of obsfucation at the government level when it comes to requests for information. There's not much in the way of protesting, but there were things like reporters working on the wikileaks story having their work blocked.