Protesters file suit over DNC march permits

Organizations intending to march on the Democratic National Convention when it is held here in August are suing the U.S. Secret Service and the City of Denver to ensure their right to demonstrate in the streets and raise a number of serious issues confronting the people of this country.

The lawsuit was announced May 2 by the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the Recreate 68 Alliance, the Troops Out Now Coalition, United for Peace and Justice, the American Indian Movement, Escuela Tlatelolco, Code Pink, Tent State University and many other organizations.

The primary reasons for the lawsuit are to secure march permits and to make the Secret Service reveal hitherto concealed information about its security perimeter.

The Recreate 68 Alliance has worked for over a year to build for protests during the DNC. The coalition has met with local, state and federal officials. It has stated all along its intention to march up to the Pepsi Center on Sunday, Aug. 24, in an anti-war day of action, and for other days after that, all of which have specific themes, such as a day for political prisoners, another for the environment and another for immigrant rights.

The activists have worked diligently to get a fair permitting system. What came out of the struggle for permits was a lottery, but on the first day of the lottery activists with Recreate 68 realized that the permits they had filled out were not in the stack of permits being considered. This “gaffe” led to the lottery being canceled that day.

While Recreate 68 and other organizations in the alliance secured some permits, the hosting committee for the DNC was able to get a permit for the largest public space in downtown Denver—Civic Center Park.

In a media communiqué on March 21, members of the alliance stated, “The city of Denver has awarded a permit for Civic Center Park on the day before the Democratic National Convention to a ‘party planner’ for the 2008 Democratic Convention Host Committee. By so doing, the city of Denver has given the largest public park in downtown Denver to a private, commercial entity, the Democrats, and denied the people of Denver the opportunity to use their park for political expression during the city-proclaimed ‘extraordinary event’ of the DNC.

“The host committee has already announced that they are hosting a ‘kickoff media party’ on Aug. 23 at Elitch Gardens. If the committee has the financial resources for an event like this, why should they be allowed to monopolize the only available large free space, the only space available to ordinary citizens in downtown Denver, on the day before the DNC, for yet another ‘kickoff party’? To say that this is unfair, and an inappropriate use of public space, is the understatement of the year.”

Activists planning to show their outrage over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and against U.S. imperialism in general, would rather be organizing for the thousands who will arrive in Denver in late August. But both city and federal officials have demonstrated their unwillingness to allow for dissent, and so made the filing of a lawsuit inevitable.

Regardless of the outcome decided by the courts, people will still protest. The Recreate 68 Alliance has seen to it that people’s concerns about the possibility of reaction from the state are kept in the forefront.

There has been a great deal of violence-baiting of Recreate 68 because of the tragic events in Chicago 40 years ago that its name refers to. In fact, the onus for the violence then and today belongs on the state forces.

For its part, Recreate 68 has issued a statement of nonviolence: “We are committed to resisting and overturning a system of violence inflicted daily on people of this country and the world, and against the natural environment, by political and corporate power, in the pursuit of profit. We are resolved that our group will not instigate violence against human beings as a means to end this system of violence and injustice. However, we recognize the right of the people to self-defense and community defense.”

Though this year is politically a complex one, especially with the real possibility that a Black man could be elected president, propelled by a movement of the oppressed Black masses, the role of the Democratic Party as an imperialist party has not changed.

It is important to be aware of the movement behind Obama and even more of that movement’s fluidity as oppression continues under a system controlled by rich white men. It is this system that the thousands of protesters will be condemning come August here in Denver.