Protesters
Sue for Speech Spot
Reflecting
Pool Area Off Limits During State of the Union
By Karlyn Barker
Washington Post
Staff Writer
Thursday, January
26, 2006;
A06
Organizers planning a protest during
President Bush’s State of the Union address next week say they have been denied
a permit to hold the demonstration around the U.S. Capitol Reflecting Pool
because that area has been reclassified as part of the security perimeter for
the day of the speech.
called “World Can’t Wait — Drive Out the Bush Regime,” say the
National Park Service and the U.S. Capitol Police initially offered them the
Capitol Reflecting Pool as a demonstration site but changed their minds.
Demonstrators have been told to confine
their gathering to the gravel walkways on the Mall between Third and Fourth streets,
farther from the Capitol. The grassy areas are fenced off because they are
being resodded.
Travis Morales, one of the organizers
of the demonstration, said the restrictions effectively deny the protesters a
meaningful public space to gather as a group. The nearest place to meet
together, he said, is Seventh Street,
about a mile from the Capitol.
“We are being told that turf
renovation and security trump our First Amendment right to protest,” he
said.
Morales said the group was offered use
of the area around the Capitol Reflecting Pool on Jan. 10 and that the site was
not then part of any security perimeter. But on Jan. 19, he said, the group was
told the security area had been expanded to include the Reflecting Pool.
He called the change “politically
motivated,” adding that the Bush administration “is trying to push us
so far away that we can’t be seen or heard. . . . A protest not seen and a
protest not heard is not a protest.”
The demonstrators filed a federal
lawsuit yesterday seeking a court order that would enable them to gather at the
Capitol Reflecting Pool. U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina will convene a
hearing, possibly today.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Capitol
Police declined to comment on Morales’s allegations that politics played a part
in the decision and would not say if the Capitol Reflecting Pool has been used
in the past as a protest site.
“Many of the questions you are
asking are security-related, so we can’t comment on that,” said Sgt.
Kimberly Schneider, a public information officer with the agency.
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a lawyer with
the Partnership for Civil Justice, said the area around the Capitol Reflecting
Pool on the west side of the U.S. Capitol has historically been a site where
demonstrators have staged protests.
“It’s been used time and time
again for major demonstrations and small demonstrations,” she said.
“It’s been a critical location for First Amendment expressive activity for
a long, long time.”
James R. Klimaski, an attorney for the
demonstrators, said protesters have been told they can’t use the area because
it would interfere with Bush’s motorcade. But, Klimaski said, that portion of
the Capitol grounds is normally used as a parking lot.
Klimaski said that other groups have
previously held demonstrations on the east side of the Capitol during State of
the Union addresses but that those areas are now off limits because of the
construction of a new visitor center.
Morales said organizers of the Capitol
Hill protest expect it to draw about 5,000 participants. The demonstration is
one of several planned around the country. The group’s Web site urges people to
gather on the night of Bush’s address to Congress and to “symbolically
drown out” the president’s speech with drums, pots and pans, and other
noise.
He said organizers are trying to get a
permit from D.C. police to close part of Third
Street so they can rally there. The group
said it does have a permit to hold a national demonstration against the Bush
administration at the Ellipse on Feb. 4.
© 2006 The
Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/
01/25/AR2006012502261.html