Wednesday, July 28, 2004


Free Speech Behind the Razor Wire
BOSTON -- The estimated 5,000 protesters at the Democratic National Convention this week have so far bumped heads over their political differences. In some cases, they have even barred one another from their scheduled (and permitted) events.

But activists have been largely united in one civil action: their boycott of the so-called free-speech zone carved out by the U.S. Secret Service and local authorities, the only spot where protesters will be able to shout their messages to the delegates arriving on buses in a nearby parking lot....

...Naro noted that when the Boston Police union was planning to protest at the DNC over a contract dispute with Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, "there was no talk of putting them into a free-speech zone. It's the people with the guns who get to have free speech." ...