Paris, August 23 (RHC)-- As U.S. President Donald Trump departs for Paris this evening to attend the G-7 summit, Amnesty International is warning that French authorities have severely restricted public assemblies and enhanced judicial measures to arrest and prosecute protesters. 

At least 13,000 police will guard the summit, as thousands of demonstrators are expected to take to the streets.  The protesters set up an activist training camp ahead of the summit this week, and they’re rejecting claims by French authorities that they’re planning for violence. 

One of the organizers of the demonstrations addressed questions by reporters as to whether or not protests will be violent.  She said: “I think it depends a lot on what we mean by violence.  I mean, what exactly is violence?  Is it when thousands of people die by drowning in the sea, because they are hungry, because they do not have a home?  Is it when thousands of animals, thousands of species, die when we cut down hectares and hectares of Amazon forests?  Or is it when four people break the windows of a bank to protest against this violence?  I think we don’t have a real sense of violence, and that’s what interests the same people in power against whom we are fighting.”