Rights of Protesters
Political advocates outside of the major parties have complained that both the Democratic and Republican conventions have violated their First Amendment rights to demonstrate, protest and advocate their ideas. Both conventions have restricted protesters to demonstrating in "free speech zones" of fenced-in areas, sometimes surrounded by barbed wire, and not accessible to the delegates. Civil rights lawyers have complained that police indiscriminately arrest demonstrators and charge them with crimes even though they are not breaking the law. In New York 2004, police arrested people and testified under oath that the arrestees had been committing violent acts. Videotapes by bystanders and the New York City police themselves later contradicted that testimony, and showed that at least some arrestees had not been violent. The City has settled lawsuits for false arrest. In 2008, St. Paul required the RNC to buy liability insurance to cover the police for legal fees and judgments arising from legal complaints by protesters. Currently, protest groups organizing against the 2012 RNC, such as resistRNC, believe special security event ordinances escalate and even create the violence it claims to prevent.
Read more about this topic: Republican National Convention
Famous quotes containing the words rights of, rights and/or protesters:
“The freedom to share one’s insights and judgments verbally or in writing is, just like the freedom to think, a holy and inalienable right of humanity that, as a universal human right, is above all the rights of princes.”
—Carl Friedrich Bahrdt (1740–1792)
“Anglo-Saxon civilization has taught the individual to protect his own rights; American civilization will teach him to respect the rights of others.”
—William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925)
“Now, honestly: if a large group of ... demonstrators blocked the entrances to St. Patrick’s Cathedral every Sunday for years, making it impossible for worshipers to get inside the church without someone escorting them through screaming crowds, wouldn’t some judge rule that those protesters could keep protesting, but behind police lines and out of the doorways?”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1953)