I don't often complain on this forum, but one thing that has been really bugging me are the protests that seem to be on every Saturday along Bahnhofstrasse or around Paradeplatz (especially when the weather is nice) which will interrupt tram services, or at various other places which will cause the most inconvenience to people.

A week ago, we were driving through the city to go to Oerlikon when we were diverted due to three - THREE - protests taking place in the city. What would have been a 10 minute trip took 1 1/2 hours.

And this Saturday, we were dropping off our visitors at the airport when we were stuck in traffic because of some environmental activists blocking Hardbrücke. It was just as well that there was a train station at Hardbrücke because they would have otherwise missed their flight. So we stopped the car and lugged 5 large suitcases across three lanes of traffic to catch the next train to the airport. A police officer came to help us, saw how stressed out our visitors were and actually apologised for the traffic conditions.

Now, I'm all for free speech and all that, but I'm not going to be sympathetic to any cause if I'm being inconvenienced by someone else's exercise of their human rights.

Why can't protesters just go to Sechseläutenplatz at Bellevue or some other square where they can be out of people's way?? And if they really feel the need to march down Bahnhofstrasse, why can't they do it on the sidewalks?

I've lost count of the number of Saturdays I've "lost" because I've been stuck in traffic or had to spend an hour circling the city just to get to where I want. Just needed to let off some steam ...

Well, I think that is the whole point about public protest demostrations....

To draw attention to them by disturbing the normality on the most populated places.

if they did the demonstration at the top of the Uetliberg, a lot of less people would get the complaint.

Appreciate it. In lot of countries you would get tortured for protesting.

Now if only there were a happy middle ground between what Cremebrulee described and a country in which protesters are 'shot at' with water cannons and teargas and hauled to lockups in police stations.

Reminds me of what my late dad taught his children: Do what you like and want so long as you don't inconvenience other people as far as you can help it.

Can we exercise free speech with a dram of consideration for others, as the OP pleaded?

Oooh, yes - big bugbear with me, too.

Coming home with frozen food in my shopping bags and a piffed off toddler I am then faced with suspended trams for half an hour while "Who gives a flying fandango" good cause rants its way past us.

Unfortunately it has the opposite effect on me and any sympathy I had for whichever oppressed group it is just evaporates.

There is already a competing circus at sechselautenplatz

Like Free Speech Zones? ugh...

They already have to apply for permission don't they?

Ah, the exquisite (not to mention recursive) irony of someone posting "Why are there always protests in Zurich???" to Complaints Corner...

Yes, I think protesters have to seek permission before they decide to block off a major road, but the fact that the authorities will agree to let them block off, say, Hardbrücke on a Saturday morning, really baffles me.

Every time I've visited Strassbourg on a Saturday there has been a manifestation. I'm sure the ones in Zurich concern subjects a little more grievous than French civil service lunch breaks being trimmed from 2 hours to 1.5 hours.

tell that to me.....

I had enough dodging horse sh!t when cycling on the countryside hill roads... Now I have to dodge elephant sh!it at the Züri lake shore , and those turds are quite big I tell ya....

I guess that's why there are no protests around there, then. It doesn't do to be shouting about your rights with elephant poo on your Nikes.

Well, seeing the protest was directed against the amount of traffic that is allowed to cross town, I think it does help get the message across when those people who constitute that traffic have to find a different route on a one off occasion: It could awaken one or the other person to the fact that people actually do live along major roads, and that a problem that some people may choose to ignore may constantly affect the life of other people. A protest like this reverses that situation briefly, and maybe shows that major roads cannot be taken for granted.

thats democracy! and there is no impact doing it somewhere offtrack at sechseläutenplatz...right where you spent you money, on highstreet...thats where you get attention! id rather go walking or with my bike into the city, keeps me from hassle like that....

I'd say it's because some people are annoyed. Maybe you aren't annoyed. Maybe you think that the world is just as it should be. Maybe you think those nike wearing demonstrators haven't got the right to take their voices to the streets, but hey, that's democracy for you.

The permission requirement has on occasion been handled flexibly by the police of the Swiss German cities though. Unapproved protests don't always get broken up by force.

i miss protests. i lived in washington DC before here and you think the few in zurich are bad...try living in the capital of the USA.....as a nanny i had the pleasure of living and working on the hill and could wander down to the mall/capital any day and find some group or another shaking their fists at the establishment and have even joined several of them!

i agree with the oink oink who said that protesting in some places would get people tortured, arrested, beaten.....

question to original poster: have you ever felt so strongly for or against a cause that you would protest in a large group in order to feel like you've tried having your voice heard....do you feel that there are other ways, besides protests, to get the small voices of the world heard?

(i do understand your issue with the blockage of roads.....then again, i am a subversive person and have blocked many roads....sorry!)

I think it’s time we organised a protest …………………….about protests !

Consider yourself fortunate that you live in a country where people have the right to protest. One of the key points of a protest is to be noticed.

and the sh***ier the cause, the more annoying the protests. Tamils have blocked major roads in T.O. today. Like if you care so much about your old country... why the heck have you moved! I would deffo water cannon people who restrict my freedom of movement. I don't care about your cause and the more aggro you cause me, the less sympathetic I will be to it. Yes, I know all about your cause, no I don't give a rats a** about it.