To:
From: "Kitchen"
Subject: A plan so bad even Gotham Gazette has problems
Permission to Protest Protest Permits?
July 19th, 2006 Civil libertarians have quickly condemned the the Bloomberg administration’s latest effort to restrict protests: requiring groups of bicyclists and even 30 or more people walking down the sidewalk to get a protest permit.
Faced with court rulings that have gone against it, the city, rather than playing by the rules, wants to change those rules, Gothamist says. “Is it just us, or does requiring small groups of protesters to register with the police smack of the kind of oppression normally found only in Fascist states?” Gothamist asks.
Civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel who helped win the rulings that went against the city– says the latest proposal “radically changes expressive activity and the right to protest in the City of New York.”
New York Civl Liberties Union executive director Donna Lieberman predicts the police department recommendation “will suffocate spontaneous protest activity …. It is completely at odds with New York City’s proud tradition of free _expression.”
Looking into the background of the rules, Capitoilette writes, that they “seem to have roots in the NYPD’s persistent and absurd paranoia” about the Critical Mass monthly mass bike ride and in “Commissioner Ray Kelly’s more generic fear of anything that might make ‘his’ city look like some place edgier than, say, Scarsdale on Prozac.”
A public hearing will be held on the rules next month. The civil liberties union has said it will ask City Council to block the regulations if the police department does not change them.
Compiled by Gail Robinson
http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2006/07/19/permission-to-protest-protest-permits/#comments
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hell's Kitchen Online(tm) -- NYC's West Side Wonderland
web: http://hellskitchen.net
email: kitchen@hellskitchen.net
No comments:
Post a Comment