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Trump gets to decide where in DC groups can protest his inauguration if at all
Alice Miranda Ollstein
Politics Reporter @ThinkProgress.
Trump gets to decide where in DC groups can protest his inauguration — if at all
Civil rights groups threaten legal action as the Trump Inauguration Committee receives the lion’s share of permits.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Hundreds of thousands of people from across the country plan to pour into the nation’s capital to protest Donald Trump’s inauguration in late January. But the National Park Service has reserved most of D.C.’s iconic public spaces for the exclusive use of Trump’s Inaugural Committee, not just on Inauguration Day itself but for the weeks leading up to and following the ceremony. Protest groups will have no access to these spaces unless the Committee voluntarily gives up their permits, which they have no incentive to do.
Local legal groups, including the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, call this move unprecedented and unconstitutional, and they say they are weighing legal action.
“This blocking permit that the National Park Service filed is an affront to the First Amendment. It is a violation of free speech rights, and it is a violation of the democratic process, in which voices must be heard,” said Carl Messineo, the organization’s legal director. “Collective assembly is in the very first amendment to the bill of rights because it is so essential to the functioning of a vital and healthy democracy.”
The Park Service has granted Trump’s Inaugural Committee the right to reserve all of Constitution Avenue, all of Independence Avenue, Lafayette Park, the White House sidewalk, and the Ellipse at the base of Capitol Hill — from January 6 to January 30.
The Park Service confirmed to Fox 5 DC that they will not make the public spaces available to activist groups until Trump’s Inaugural Committee decides whether or not they will use them.
“What that means is that the National Park Service is giving Donald Trump the right to decide if, where, and whether people will be allowed to demonstrate against the incoming Trump Administration,” said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, an attorney with the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund who has fought in court for protesters’ rights for every inauguration since 2001.
more...
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-gets-to-decide-where-in-dc-groups-can-protest-his-inauguration-if-at-all-13d9546edde0#.vz3qsxoph
22 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
and more determined for further Resistance?
How did they get to protest bush2 or even Obama?
Never mind.. from your link..
Though the Park Service claimed it is following procedures established in in 2008, Verheyden-Hilliard said that Trump’s inauguration has drawn much more demand for protest permits than President Obama’s, giving the restrictions a bigger impact. “Before, groups who have wanted demonstration space have gotten demonstration space. Now, they’re being denied access.”
Thank you, babylonsister... good to know.
a negative 3 million vote mandate!
for the humor impaired
