Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders, or commands of a government. It is a form of resistance without violence, where the aim is usually to bring changes to laws or government policies. Civil disobedience has been used in many nonviolent resistance movements, such as Mahatma Gandhis campaigns for independence from the British Empire in India, in Czechoslovakias Velvet Revolution, in the early stages of the Bangladeshi independence movement against Pakistani colonialism, and in the American civil rights movement.

Key features of civil disobedience include:

• Non-violence: Civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil".
• Conscientious breach of law: Civil disobedience is a public, non-violent, and conscientious breach of law undertaken with the aim of bringing about a change in laws or government policies.
• Symbolic or ritualistic violation of the law: Acts associated with civil disobedience are considered crimes, and known by actor and public alike to be punishable, that such acts serve as a protest.
• Communicative act: Civil disobedience is understood as a communicative act – a kind of symbolic speech, which aims to convey a message to a certain audience, such as the government and public.

Civil disobedience is usually defined as pertaining to a citizens relation to the state and its laws, as distinguished from a constitutional impasse, in which two public agencies, especially two equally sovereign branches of government, conflict. It is a controversial form of protest, as it can cause disruption in the daily life of societies.