The government can use COVID as an excuse to stop religious practices or recreational practices, but they can't use COVID to stop radical racial demonstrations, plenty of which erupted oi violence, according to the 1200 doctors that signed that letter. Do you see the double standard here?
I see a distinction.
It
does not benefit the government to stop people going out to the pub.
It
does benefit the government to stop people protesting against the government.
If they have no incentive to stop people going to the pub, then it seems likely that there is a legitimate reason to stop people going to the pub.
Perhaps there is also a reason to stop people gathering in a crowd and protesting against the government. Or perhaps if they're all wearing masks it's less of an issue. Perhaps if they're also, somehow, social distancing, it's even less of an issue. Or perhaps it is genuinely a public health risk for them to gather like that.
I can certainly see that having a load of protesters in close proximity for a prolonged period of time during a respiratory pandemic could be unsafe. But that's not really the issue. The issue is the government using the pandemic as an excuse to clamp down on activities that are critical of the government.
If there are 10,000 people gathered together protesting, and the government says "These people shouldn't be gathering like that. Protests are unsafe and are now banned" ... then that's one thing. But if one person then stands outside the city hall with a placard, and the government arrest him because "Hey, don't you remember? We said protests are unsafe and are now banned" then that's quite a different thing.
Hey, we can shut
this guy down, right? Because pandemic.