ATLANTA — As several states move to regulate protests and rioting, a Georgia committee on Tuesday advanced a bill that opponents say deter peaceful protests.

The Republican-led proposal — approved along party lines in the Senate Judiciary Committee — would increase penalties for inciting a riot or mob intimidation, vandalism of private businesses and government property, assaulting first responders and obstructing a highway during unlawful assemblies of two or more people.

Penalties could range one to five years in prison and/or a fine of up to $5,000.

Republican Sen. Randy Robertson of Cataula said he brought forth the “Safe Communities Act” after racial justice protests in Atlanta and around the country in 2020 turned violent, resulting in damaged property and buildings.

“What this bill does is it protects the rights of any Georgian to go out there and exercise their First Amendment rights under the Constitution of the United States of America about any issue they choose to without fear of being assaulted or hurt,” Robertson said. 

Amendments to Robertson’s proposal approved Tuesday shorten the timeframe for a city to approve an assembly permit request from five days to three days.

But opponents argued that government should not be allowed to permit free speech assemblies, which they say largely affects minorities who often live in metro cities, like Atlanta, where protests are more likely to occur. 

“When Black people are killed by police or Black youth are killed by police, and when they’re unjustly incarcerated … when immigrant people are deported, I hope everybody in this room is walking alongside the mothers and the children of those people who are impacted,” said Kevin Joachin of the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights. “It sounds like people who aren’t from Atlanta, people who aren’t Black and people who aren’t from communities of color are trying to prevent progress here in the state of Georgia.” 

“SB 171 would lead to an increase of racial profiling from police, an increase in unlawful arrests and an increase the false claims of our efforts to assemble,” said Giovanni Serrano of the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights.

Those who spoke during the 30 minutes allotted for public comments were against the bill, many saying it infringes on First Amendment Rights.

“This body just passed a bill allowing permitless gun carry for all Georgians because it is their constitutional right,” said Kareem El-Hossein of CAIR-GA, a muslim civil rights group. “This bill now requires Georgians to get permits to demonstrate, which is also a constitutionally protected right.”

The bill protects those who may cause the injury or death of a protestor who is obstructing a highway or street, if the person was “under the reasonable belief that fleeing was necessary to prevent or terminate an attack upon the accused’s property or person.”

There are “groups that seek out and provoke violence and giving them an affirmative defense seems like a very reckless thing to do and is making this a potential target state for some of these groups,” said Isabel Otero, Georgia policy director of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “We are giving an affirmative defense to a group like the Neo Nazis but we’re going to prosecute someone like (late) Congressman (John) Lewis for walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge for a $5,000 fine and five years.”

Robertson said the bill also puts emphasis on cities to ensure adequate first responders are available during the event of protests and riots, referencing protests in Atlanta where it was reported that first responders were ordered to not engage violent protesters. 

“Citizens pay taxes and public safety is a primary responsibility of a city,” Robertson said. “And they cannot tell their public safety, whether it’s fire and EMS or whether it’s law enforcement, to stand down when their citizens need them the most.”

The bill makes cities or counties civilly liable for any injuries, deaths or damages that occur due to inadequate law enforcement protection during a riot or unlawful assembly.  

Kenyatta Mitchell, director of intergovernmental affairs for Atlanta, said that provision of the proposal is unreasonable for the city of Atlanta, which can’t control sudden, un-permitted assemblies of people in the city.

“It is our fear that the waiving of sovereign immunity against the city of Atlanta is just an open checkbook against us,” Mitchell said. “We bring in millions of people from around the world and we have no idea, no way, to stop protests in that way. We have police forces, we have all those things available. But once you start saying that we have to both pay for the police force and then pay for any thing that individuals do, it makes it very difficult for us to proceed as a city.”

According to International Center for Not-For Profit Law, which tracks anti-protest legislation in the country, 2021 saw the largest amount of anti-protest bills proposed and enacted. Currently, nearly 50 pieces of anti-protest legislations are pending, though nearly 20 states have already enacted some form of a protest bill.  

A proposal in Alabama, House Bill 2, cleared the House last month and now awaits a vote in the Senate. The proposal, if approved, would enact a mandatory three months in jail for second-degree assault on a first responder and six months for first-degree assault.

The bill also punishes other rioters to a minimum of 30 days in jail, and defines a riot as the assemblage of five or more people “engaging in conduct which creates an immediate danger of and/or results in damage to property or injury to a person.”

A rioter would also be in violation by refusing a law enforcement officer’s order to disperse, gives law enforcement authority to arrest someone for a violation if the officer witnessed or even has probable cause of a violation; a person who blocks vehicular traffic would be mandated to serve a minimum of 30 days in jail under the proposal.

A Mississippi proposal that sought to stiffen penalties and regulate rioting and protesting died in committee last month. In August 2020, steeper penalties for rioting in Tennessee were enacted, and additional attempts stalled in the legislature last year.