FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
St. Paul, Minnesota — August 26, 2008 — Ramsey County Court held a hearing on whether free speech rights should exist in certain areas surrounding the RNC next week. Impeach for Peace with the help of the ACLU was suing the St. Paul City Council and Police for eliminating the free speech rights of RNC demonstrators in areas around the RNC without giving specific legitimate reasons regarding security or safety concerns. Impeach for Peace also accuses St. Paul of failing to engage in due process as required by the Minnesota State Constitution because they did not allow for public discussion prior to making many of their decisions.
Today, arguments were heard in front of Chief Judge Kathleen Gearin. Impeach for Peace and other litigants were seeking to add portions of Seventh Street near the RNC to the areas allowing free speech. The City of St. Paul maintained that Seventh Street was crucial for convention bus traffic and emergency vehicles. However, the City failed to give specific reasons why they felt Seventh Street was necessary, given that the majority of the streets around the RNC will be blocked off for convention and emergency traffic only. The City did mention access to United Hospital but failed to acknowledge that the most direct access to that hospital would not be made via Seventh Street, but via Smith Ave.
The ACLU argued that the free speech areas, which allow sight and sound access to the convention, are too small. Most of the area designated by the City is either far away from the RNC or in areas blocked by news vans, trees or other obstacles. The small area, which is in range of the RNC, is shaped in such a way that two fences converge on a single point closest to the RNC. This will create a safety hazard as protest groups with different messages compete to occupy that single point.
The media coverage of today’s court hearing by MPR (Minnesota Public Radio) was unfortunately biased toward the City’s case and in no way fairly reflected the actual specifics of the case. MPR gave airtime to the City’s lawyers. The sound bite chosen left the listener with fear about emergency vehicle access, but did not bother to include audio of the ACLU’s lawyers, who were also interviewed. Had MPR engaged in a balance report, the ACLU’s refutation of that claim would have been made clear.
Impeach for Peace believes the Central point to be made in the case is that the freedom of speech as granted by the U.S. Constitution should be assumed, and any restriction thereof necessarily negotiated with the citizens. In this case, the City of St. Paul unilaterally decided many of the details regarding free speech activities surrounding the RNC requiring citizens to fight to reacquire their constitutional rights.
Unfortunately, in this instance it is already too late damage the City has caused to free speech rights to be completely repaired. But, hopefully, the judge’s decision, which is expected at any time, will hold the City accountable for that damage and restore some of the free speech rights lost.
For details on Impeach for Peace’s plans to protest, sign up for action alerts at http://ImpeachforPeace.org.
For more information please contact Jodin Morey, Cofounder of Impeach for Peace.
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