USA TODAY: Convention cities sued by protesters

[highplainsdem]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-07-08-Protests_N.htm

By Martha T. Moore, USA TODAY
The cities hosting the Democratic and Republican conventions also will inevitably host thousands of protesters — and those visitors have already taken Denver and St. Paul to court.
Both cities have been sued by the ACLU and protest groups planning to mobilize at the political confabs. At issue: where and when demonstrations and marches can be held.

In St. Paul, the city and protest groups are due in court Wednesday to settle the route of an anti-war march scheduled for Labor Day, Sept. 1, the first day of the Republican convention.

Protest groups want to march all the way around the Xcel Energy Center, the convention site. City officials say that route would interfere with evacuation routes from the convention hall and could help protesters who want to block GOP delegates' access to the center. The protesters, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, say the city's route, which calls for the march to pass in front of the convention hall and then double back along a main road, could cause trouble. "It's a dead end," says Chuck Samuelson, executive director of the ACLU of Minnesota, and could cause "logjams or the possibility of a … riot in a confined space."

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In Denver, protest groups say the area designated for them is too far from the Pepsi Center convention site to be within sight and sound of the Democratic convention, being held Aug. 25-28. The anti-war march planned there, scheduled for Aug. 24, does not pass the Pepsi Center nor end at the demonstration area, according to the city-approved route.

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More at the link.