ACLU Reaffirms Protestors' Right to Demonstrate at the Democratic National Convention Next Week

In Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Seattle Protestors' Civil Liberties were Violated
For Immediate Release: August 10, 2000

The ACLU of Northern California supports the right of protesters to demonstrate next week at the National Democratic Convention as thousands converge in Los Angeles. Today in Federal Court, the ACLU of Southern California is seeking a temporary restraining order demanding that the Los Angeles police immediately stop the harassment of protestors at their organizing headquarters. Protestors have been targets of police surveillance, selective enforcement of traffic laws and police visits without warrants.

"An alarming pattern of police harassment and intimidation of demonstrators in Seattle and Philadelphia Ð raises serious concern as to whether the planned protests at the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles will be similarly targeted by the LAPD," said Alan Schlosser, managing attorney of the ACLU of Northern California. " Even if demonstrations include civil disobedience, that does not mean that the Constitution can be suspended and open season declared on political dissenters. That principle was correct when applied to Martin Luther King and the civil rights protests in Birmingham and Selma in the SixtiesÐ it is as equally true today as applied to those who go to Los Angeles to demonstrate in the year 2000."

There is mounting concern that police tactics are violating the free speech rights of protestors at demonstrations throughout the nation. Last week in Philadelphia, the ACLU criticized the police for overreacting to protests at the Republican National Convention where hundreds of protestors were arrested. The ACLU also expressed concern that bail was being set at artificially high levels to keep protest leaders in jail until their trial, which would be after the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles.

In Seattle, the ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging the City of Seattle's establishment of a "no protest zone" during the meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) last December. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court last March on behalf of seven protestors and three of the plaintiffs will receive $5000 each. "The City essentially created a militarized zone in downtown Seattle and banned all protest within this zone," said Kathleen Taylor, Executive Director of the ACLU of Washington.