NATO/G-8
Chicago’s NATO Summit vs. the 1st Amendment – Why We Are Appealing the City’s Attack on Our Right to March
City “alternative” march route would allow authorities to “kettle” NATO protesters in Grant Park, deny 1st Amendment rights
Chicago Officials are using the new ‘Sit Down and Shut Up’ ordinances to deny protest permit they had previously approved
CHICAGO — Late Thursday afternoon, the Coalition Against the NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda (CANG8) appealed the City’s rejection of our permit application for a march on the opening day of the NATO Summit here – Sunday, May 20.
CANG8 will have a mass, non-violent march on May 20th, and it is our intention to secure a permit to do so. Out-of-towners should make their travel plans accordingly.
The City’s rejection of our permit to march has to be seen in the context of decades of efforts by Chicago mayors to sideline and diminish anti-war voices. We believe that our struggle for the right to peacefully march on May 20th, without police or other government harassment, is much bigger than any one organization or group of individuals.
We have a responsibility to undertake this struggle not just for our own 1st Amendment freedoms, but for all who wish to regain the freedoms that have diminished so frightfully over the past few years.
To reverse this attack on the right to protest in our city, we need your help in three ways:
1) Please plan on attending the appeals hearing at 10:30 AM, next Tuesday, March 27 at 400 W. Superior Street, Room 111;
2) Please share this notice widely – email it to your friends and list-serves. If you are on Facebook, please go to the Facebook event page here, invite your FB friends, and post the link widely on Facebook and other social media; and,
3) Contact the Mayor’s office with your messages of protest. Call 312.744.5000 or go here http://webapps.cityofchicago.
Background to the Current Struggle
On January 3rd – the earliest legally permissible date – CANG8 applied with the City for a permit to march from Daley Plaza to the edge of McCormick Place on May 19, the day that would soon be designated as the first date of the joint G8 and NATO summits in Chicago. The permit was rapidly granted by the City, without reservation.
On March 13, the day after the White House yanked the G8 portion of the summits from Chicago, in apparent response to growing controversy, CANG8 applied for the exact same march route and time as we had previously, but for May 20, the new opening date of the diminished summit. The City’s Assistant Director of Transportation, Michael Simon, told a CANG8 representative that “we think we can turn this around for you [i.e., grant approval] today.”
But despite repeated calls to them through the course of the week, the City waited until March 18, the last possible date on which they could legally do so, to respond with a rejection of the CANG8 application to march on May 20th.
Their reasoning? That there are not “a sufficient number of on-duty police officers or other city employees” to deal with the proposed May 20th march. But given that the G8 meeting is now relocated to Camp David and Sundays have less civilian traffic than Saturdays, arguably the City would have significantly greater police resources available for our protest on May 20th.
But there was another agenda at work. By claiming that the City does not have sufficient “on-duty” personnel, Chicago officials were now utilizing the language of the new “sit-down and shut-up” ordinances to justify their rejection of the permit. Under the old ordinance, the city could only reject an application if there were not “a sufficient number of peace officers and traffic control aides” — on- or off-duty.
If the City truly lacked sufficient police and other resources to host the summits and accommodate meaningful expressions of the First Amendment, then City officials should have declined to host the summits in the first place.
The Real Agenda Behind the City’s Permit Rejection
Under the terms of the old and new parade permit ordinance, the City is required to offer a “comparable” alternative route to any proposed march route it rejects. In our experience, the City’s “comparable” alternatives are seldom that. This was time was no exception.
We rejected the City’s “comparable” routes for three reasons:
1) Starting at the Petrillo Band Shell as the City proposed would vastly enhance authorities’ ability to “kettle” peace activists in Grant Park, far from the NATO summits, and derail our First Amendment rights to free speech. Kettling — unconstitutionally surrounding demonstrators, isolating and preventing them from leaving — has become a common practice for police departments around the country in recent years, and was used by the by the Chicago Police Department in 2003 to take revenge on a mass march at the start of the Iraq War (the ultimate result was a $6.5 million settlement for protesters reached last month).
The City is already pressuring National Nurses United to end their Friday, May 18 march at Hutchinson Field at the south end of Grant Park, even though NNU has both a march permit and rally permit that would have them end at Daley Plaza.
We have two sources from within the City’s side who have confirmed that the City wants all marches on the summit to end at Hutchinson Field, at the southeast end of the Grant Park, using the federal government’s “security perimeter” as the excuse;
2) The City rejected our using Daley Plaza as the starting point for the May 20th march even though we secured an agreement with the other applicant for the Plaza on that day to share the space.
This is reminiscent of the Public Building Commission’s blanket ban on use of the plaza from May 15-22 (the original dates of the summits) announced in an email to us in November. But we didn’t take the rejection lying down. We forced Mayor Emanuel to rescind that ban when we confronted him at a meeting of the PBC with several news cameras whirring.
3) The “comparable” alternative routes that the City offered in its rejection letter and in negotiations following that were seriously flawed in that they either lacked public visibility – a requirement for meaningful expression of the 1st Amendment – or they added much greater length to an already long march route.
CANG8′s Logistics Committee continued negotiations with the City until the last day permissible under the law, twice extending our deadline on that day so that the City could put together its “last and best offer.” Alas, they stuck to an unreasonable stance of refusing to grant a permit for the same route that they had granted when the summits were to begin a day previously, using transparently disingenuous reasoning to justify their changed stance.
Next Steps
Our next struggle will be in the courts — and in the court of public opinion. That’s where you come in. Our appeal of the City’s permit rejection will be at 10:30 AM next Tuesday, March 27 at the courthouse located at 400 W. Superior, Room 111.
We are committed to holding a peaceful, permitted march to the NATO Summit on Sunday, May 20th. But we won’t be able to do it without your help. Contact City Hall and voice your protest – call 312.744.5000 or go here.
And next Tuesday morning, please the courtroom – 10:30 AM, 400 W. Superior, Room 111. Come yourself, invite your friends, spread the word!
Thank you!!
The Logistics Committee of CANG8
Press Related to Chicago Denial of NATO protest permit
Protesters: Is city admitting it lacks the cops to handle NATO summit?
By Fran Spielman
Chicago Sun-Times
March 22, 2012
http://www.suntimes.com/news/
Activists to appeal NATO protest permit denial
ABC Channel 7
March 22, 2012
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/
Occupy to protest at NATO summit
By David Heinzmann
Chicago Tribune
March 19, 2012
http://www.nashuatelegraph.
NATO protesters one step closer to marching
By Paul Merrion
Crain’s Chicago Business
March 19, 2012
http://www.chicagobusiness.
Chicago officials deny permit for May 20 NATO protest march
By David Heinzmann
Clout Street
Chicago Tribune
March 19, 2012
http://www.chicagobusiness.
Chicago officials deny permit for May 20 NATO protest march
RedEye
March 19, 2012
http://www.redeyechicago.com/
Chicago rejects NATO summit protest march plans
By Kim Janssen
Chicago Sun-Times
March 19, 2012
http://www.suntimes.com/news/
Protesters denied changes in summit march
By Paul Meincke
ABC Channel 7
March 19, 2012
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/
Chicago denies NATO protest permit
By Alex Keefe
WBEZ-FM Chicago Public Radio
March 19, 2012
http://www.wbez.org/story/
G-8 relocation has LGBT protest up in the air
By Kate Sosin
Windy City Times
March 21, 2012
http://www.
NATO protesters eye court battle over Chicago march permit
By Paul Merrion
Crain’s Chicago Business
March 21, 2012
http://www.chicagobusiness.
Kill the Quiet With a Riot
Global Tremors
Social Commentary on the World
March 19, 2012
http://manalshakir.wordpress.
Protesters appeal denial of NATO march plans
By David Heinzmann
Clout Street
Chicago Tribune
March 22, 2012
http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Protesters appeal denial of parade permit for NATO summit, say city’s alternative unacceptable
Associated Press
March 22, 2012
http://www.therepublic.com/
Activists to Announce Change of Plans for Protest v. G8-NATO
For Immediate Release: 3/14/2012
For Information: Andy Thayer, 773.209.1187, CCAWR@aol.com, Coalition Against the NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda (CANG8)
Joe Iosbaker (773.301.0109, joeiosbaker@gmail.com, Coalition Against the NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda (CANG8)
Activists to Announce
Change of Plans
For Protest v. G8-NATO
CHICAGO — New plans for the only currently permitted march to go to the doorstep of this city’s NATO summit May 20-21 will be announced 10 AM Thursday at a press conference to be held on the southwest corner of Daley Plaza (Washington Blvd. & Clark Street), site of opening rally for the May protest.
While activists see the moving of the G8 summit to the mountains of western Maryland as an attempt to blunt the protests to be held here, most reports indicate that activists are instead taking confidence from what they see as a victory over an institution that’s so unpopular that it once again shuns holding its meetings in major urban areas.
“The removal of the G8 from Chicago shows the value of protests,” said Pat Hunt, a spokesperson for the Coalition Against the NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda (www.CANG8.org). “If protest can score such a victory, then people draw the logical conclusion that even more protest can score additional victories.”
“With the Sunday murder of 16 Afghan civilians by one or more U.S. service members and the unprovoked Israeli air strikes on Gaza which have killed 21 over the past few days, the occupation policies promoted by NATO and its allies are showing why May’s protests in Chicago are going to the focus of the progressive movement this spring,” said Joe Iosbaker, also of CANG8.
Other representatives at the press conference will include:
** Mark Banks representing Occupy Chicago
** Mary Dean, who recently visited Afghanistan as part of a Voices For Creative Non-Violence delegation
** Bishop Reuel Marigza, General Secretary, United Church of Christ in the Philippines and Vice Chair, National Council of Churches in the Philippines
** The Right Reverend Felixberto Calang, IRI, Supreme Council of Bishops of the Philippine Independent Church and Convener, Initiatives for Peace in Mindanao
** Ms. Angelina Bisuna-Ipong, former political prisoner in The Philippines and author, Garden Behind Bars
** Jan Rodolfo, RN, who is the Midwest Director of the National Nurses Union, which is hosting another anti-G8/NATO march on Friday, May 18
** Darrius Lightfoot, Fearless Leading by the Youth and Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP)
** Nick Egnatz of Northwest Indiana Veterans for Peace
and,
** Joe Iosbaker and Andy Thayer representing the Logistics Committee of CANG8.
# # #
Media Roundup from G8Chicago = Shut Down
Group of protestors celebrate news of summit relocation G8 summit moved from Chicago to Camp David
WGN News Chicago
“Groups who planned protests for the G8 summit reacted quickly and said the move is a victory in their favor. But don’t expect fewer protestors in May, they say, because the NATO summit is just as big of a target to stage their demonstrations.”
http://www.wgntv.com/news/
G8 summit moved from Chicago to Camp David
ABC News Chicago
“The Occupy Chicago movement has drawn hundreds of supporters for numerous marches and protests since last summer. The group has taken the lead with other protesters in organizing plans for the G8 and NATO summits. But with the G8 now being held at Camp David, they say they plan to go ahead with their plans. ‘We’re going to make sure we’re in the streets in such numbers with such volume that they will hear us all the way in Camp David.’”
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/
Protesters Say March Will Go On at NATO Summit
FOX News Chicago
“Regardless of the real reason for moving the G8, and regardless of the spin that the White House or the Mayor’s office may be putting on this decision, protesters here firmly believe what was planned for the streets here – during those three days in May – played a significant role in moving a major international summit out of Chicago.”
http://www.myfoxchicago.com/
Protesters: G8 Venue Change Means Nothing
NBC News Chicago
“‘It’s a major victory for those of us who are planning these protests,’ said Joe Iosbaker with the United National Antiwar Committee in Chicago. ‘The administration is taking G8 someplace where they won’t have to face the people who suffer under their policies.’”
http://www.nbcchicago.com/
VIDEO: Protesters declare victory after G-8 is moved
Occupy Chicago, others elated and still plan city marches
Chicago Tribune
“In St. Louis, the Occupy movement is getting ready for a Midwestern conference next week at which protesting the Chicago summits is a major agenda item. ‘I put this in the win column,” said Zach Chasnoff, a spokesman for Occupy St. Louis.’”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/
All of a sudden, losing G-8 is winning
Emanuel declares victory, but so does Occupy
Chicago Tribune
“And with the White House talking about tolerance while pushing class warfare, the last thing the president needs is images of protesters clashing with Chicago police, with the Occupy movement camped in squalid Obamavilles in the parks.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/
G8 protest organizers declare victory party–but not many attend
Chicago Tribune
“Rachael Perrota, part of the Occupy Chicago Press Committee, led the gathering in a new version of the movement’s signature call-and-recall ‘mic check’ chants. ‘It doesn’t matter/where they hide/we will be in the streets/of Chicago/in such numbers/ they will hear us at Camp David,’ she said.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Protesters declare victory, but say: ‘Our protests will go forward’
Chicago Sun Times
“’Our protest will go forward because NATO is the military arm of the G-8. NATO has bombed whole countries to smithereens and is currently engaged in the U.S.’s longest war in history,’ said Andy Thayer, a spokesman for the Coalition Against NATO/G-8.
http://www.suntimes.com/
White House relocates G-8 summit to Camp David
MSNBC
“Various groups are expected to hold protests in Chicago. One group, Occupy Chicago, tweeted ‘#NATO will still be here. And so will we. We are Occupy. We are the people. #ExpectUs.’”
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.
United National Antiwar Committee | G8 Moving to Camp David
Protestors claim victory, to continue plans to march on May 19th
Today, the White House announced that the G8 summit,scheduled for Chicago on May 19-20, will be moved to Camp David, although the NATO summit will still take place in Chicago.
The Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda(CANG8) and Occupy Chicago issue the following statement:
The G8 moving to Camp David represents a major victory for the people of Chicago. The leaders of the 1%are moving because of the overwhelming resistance to the NATO/G8 war and poverty agenda in Chicago. Our city is filled with tens of thousands of people who arestruggling to keep their heads above water, fighting against the effects of theeconomic crisis caused by the leaders who would have been gathering here. The communities of Chicago are fighting tosave their schools, keep healthcare available, and to defend their jobs fromcutbacks that are a hallmark of the governments of the G8.
The city has carried out a campaign to intimidate and vilify protesters, claiming that protestslead to violence. In fact, the mainsource of violence in the world today is the wars being waged by NATO and theUS.
“We will march on May 19th to deliver ourmessage: Jobs, Housing, Healthcare,Education, Our Pensions, the Environment: Not War! We and tens of thousandswill be in the streets that day for a family friendly rally and march, with cries so loud they wll be heard in Camp David and across the globe. We will be in the streets that day to fight for our future, and speak out against the warsand their cutbacks are designed to benefit the 1% at theexpense of the 99% of the world.”
Ride the AWC/WAMM Bus to Chicago for the G8/NATO Protests!
Click to download the "Get on the Bus!" Flyer
The Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda is organizing protests at the NATO and G8 meetings being held in Chicago in May 2012. WAMM and the Anti-War Committee are working together to bring Minnesotans by bus to join the protests.
The current price of $65 per seat is only guaranteed through March. We are fundraising to keep ticket costs low, and to make some tickets available on a sliding scale for those who need it. From this site you can buy your ticket and make a donation to help others make the trip.
If you are need a reduced price ticket, if you prefer to buy your ticket off-line, or if you have any questions, contact April from WAMM at 612-823-5989. You can also contact the Anti-War Committee via email – info@antiwarcommittee.org
We are also offering a discounted student/low-income ticket price for $45. We respectfully request that you not use this code unless you are a student or low-income activist, as the cost of this ticket does not cover the cost of the bus seat. The discout code is 45TICKET
Bus pick up and drop off times are subject to change, but not by much. We will notify you of exact times as soon as they are set. We have not yet set where the busses will load and unload, but that is likely to be somewhere in South Minneapolis.
Updated NATO G8 Flyers
Chicago will pay out $6.2 million for mass arrests at anti-war protest | Fight Back!
Posted by FightBack! News on February 20, 2012
In February, the National Lawyers Guild reached a $6.2 million settlement in the case of Vodak v City of Chicago, which arose from the arrest of 800 protesters on the night the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq began. The case is named after Kevin Vodak, an attorney who attended the protest as a legal observer for the National Lawyers Guild. Vodak was arrested along with the protesters.
Under Mayor Emanuel, the city has frustrated attempts by organizers to get permits for protests against NATO/G8. Emanuel has attempted to force drastic changes to ordinances governing protests, trying to restrict the right to protest.
Fight Back! posed questions to Jim Fennerty, one of the lawyers in this nine-year legal fight for the right to protest.
Fight Back!: What is the Vodak case about?
Jim Fennerty: On March 20, 2003 almost 800 anti-war protesters were arrested on Chicago Avenue in Chicago. Prior to the arrest between 10 and15,000 anti-war protesters who were protesting the start of the Iraq war were escorted by the Chicago Police as they marched from Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago over to Lake Shore Drive where they proceeded to walk north on Lake Shore Drive and then exited on Oak Street.
When the protesters exited on Oak Street they were met by a line of police at Michigan Avenue and were not allowed to cross Michigan Avenue or march down Michigan Avenue and return to Federal Plaza. After waiting over an hour the police told some marchers that they could go back the way they came. Others in the march, who could not hear the police, on their own started marching back to Inner Lake Shore Drive and eventually on to Chicago Avenue after being allowed by the police. The marchers again marched to Michigan Avenue where they were met by another police line preventing them from crossing Michigan Avenue or marching down Michigan Avenue and back to Federal Plaza.
On Chicago Avenue the protesters were surrounded by the Chicago Police and detained up to three hours. In the detained crowd, besides protesters, there were joggers, people who just got off the bus, workers who just got off of work and shoppers. The protesters were peaceful and some were chanting that they just wanted to go home. None of the people detained were ever given orders by the police to disperse or an opportunity to leave.
Eventually the police started to arrest people and to put them into police wagons or buses. Hundreds were taken to jail where many were charged with misdemeanors and had to attend court. Hundreds of people taken to jail were released, some spending 40 hours in jail because they could not be identified by a police officer that they were at Chicago and Michigan Avenues. Several hundred others were detained on the street up to three hours before being released.
The Chicago chapter of the National Lawyers Guild called for volunteers to represent everyone who was charged with a crime. After several appearances in court all the people who the Guild attorneys represented had their charges dismissed.
At the same time several of these same Guild attorneys filed a class action law suit challenging the unconstitutional arrest of the people who were arrested or detained on Chicago Avenue. After almost nine years of litigation where over 100 people were deposed, the City of Chicago decided to settle the class action on the eve of trial for $6.2 million.
Fight Back!: Why did the city settle?
Fennerty: Because they knew that they were going to lose big time at trial. Two years earlier a federal judge agreed with the city that the police were immune from suit because the law was not established in this federal district that before you could arrest non-violent protesters you had to give them an order to disperse and an opportunity to leave. Also the judge held that the protesters could be arrested because they were marching without a permit.
On appeal to the 7th Circuit the court reversed the district court judge and held that the law was that protesters could not be rounded up and arrested without giving them a notice to disperse, which all could hear, and an opportunity to leave. The court also held that since the protest was a spontaneous demonstration, they could march without a permit.
Also the police defended the case on their statements that the protesters were violent, destroyed property and were charging the police lines. Nothing could be further from the truth. The police videos showed peaceful demonstrators who, when they got to Chicago Avenue just wanted to go home.
Fight Back!: Does this impact on the plans for the May 19 march against the NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda and other protests during the NATO/G8 summits?
Fennerty: Already the City has stated that they have changed their procedures for mass arrests. Recently during the arrest of Occupy Chicago the police have given individual orders to disperse and opportunity to leave before making arrests. Will this mean that during the NATO/G8 protests the Chicago Police will follow the constitution remains to be seen.
Note: the Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda (CANG8) won permits from the City of Chicago to rally in Daley Plaza and march to McCormick Place. While the Secret Service is threatening to revoke the permits in service of the National Special Security Event, CANG8 is determined to go forward with a family friendly, permitted march on May 19. CANG8 continues to demand that Mayor Emanuel stop vilifying protesters as violent; that Police Superintendent McCarthy stop threatening protesters with mass arrests and that the Obama administration and Homeland Security Director Napolitano, who is over Secret Service, respect the permits granted by the City of Chicago.
Adbusters Issues New Call to Action: Occupy Chicago for G8/NATO Summit
Published on Thursday, January 26, 2012 by Common Dreams
The Occupy Wall Street movement traces its origin to a call to action in the Vancouver-based magazine Adbusters.
Now, Adbusters has issued a Call to Action to Occupy Chicago for the G8/NATO summitthis coming May:
Hey you redeemers, rebels and radicals out there,
Against the backdrop of a global uprising that is simmering in dozens of countries and thousands of cities and towns, the G8 and NATO will hold a rare simultaneous summit in Chicago this May. The world’s military and political elites, heads of state, 7,500 officials from 80 nations, and more than 2,500 journalists will be there.
And so will we.
On May 1, 50,000 people from all over the world will flock to Chicago, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and #OCCUPYCHICAGO for a month. With a bit of luck, we’ll pull off the biggest multinational occupation of a summit meeting the world has ever seen.
And this time around we’re not going to put up with the kind of police repression that happened during the Democratic National Convention protests in Chicago, 1968 … nor will we abide by any phony restrictions the City of Chicago may want to impose on our first amendment rights. We’ll go there with our heads held high and assemble for a month-long people’s summit … we’ll march and chant and sing and shout and exercise our right to tell our elected representatives what we want … the constitution will be our guide.
And when the G8 and NATO meet behind closed doors on May 19, we’ll be ready with our demands: a Robin Hood Tax … a ban on high frequency ‘flash’ trading … a binding climate change accord … a three strikes and you’re out law for corporate criminals … an all out initiative for a nuclear-free Middle East … whatever we decide in our general assemblies and in our global internet brainstorm – we the people will set the agenda for the next few years and demand our leaders carry it out.
And if they don’t listen … if they ignore us and put our demands on the back burner like they’ve done so many times before … then, with Gandhian ferocity, we’ll flashmob the streets, shut down stock exchanges, campuses, corporate headquarters and cities across the globe … we’ll make the price of doing business as usual too much to bear.
Jammers, pack your tents, muster up your courage and prepare for a big bang in Chicago this Spring. If we don’t stand up now and fight now for a different kind of future we may not have much of a future … so let’s live without dead time for a month in May and see what happens …
for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ
# # #
“Sit Down and Shut Up” Ordinances Passed in Chicago City Council
Joe Iosbaker demands right to march on the G8/NATO Summit at City Hall news conference (Fight Back! News/Staff)
Joint statement by Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda (CANG8) and Occupy Chicago
At 12:30 today, Rahm Emanuel officiated over the death of the Bill of Rights in the City Council chambers.
Ordinances designed to severely restrict First Amendment rights of speech and assembly were presented on December 14th. The stated target was to prepare to repress protestors during the summits of NATO and the G8.
At first, aldermen and the media all agreed that no one would oppose Emanuel on this.
In response to mayor’s attack on civil liberties, the Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda (CANG8) joined together with Occupy Chicago and several unions to unite our efforts to defend of civil liberties in Chicago. By last week, aldermen had felt so much pressure from constituents that they had to speak out.
Emanuel then moved to withdraw first one, and then another, of the most criticized pieces. Protests continued to grow; Emanuel retreated further; the protests mounted, and he retreated even further.
Finally, a version was reached that the council opposition could vote for, hoping that the movement would not condemn them. The final version is still a significant attack on democratic rights; its passage is a defeat for our movement.
The mayor has not achieved his true objective, though. Emanuel looks at the new Chicago he has inherited, with protestors in so many places, and he wants to put the genie back in the bottle. It’s not possible.
We have the right to protest against war, austerity, and inequality. Mayor Emanuel, you’ll see us in the streets of Chicago: our streets.
Demand the right to march against NATO/G8 summits in Chicago: National call in day, Tuesday, January 17th
Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago is attempting to clamp down on First Amendment rights to march and speak out against the NATO and G8 summits in May 2012.
Emanuel is trying to rush through the City Council on January 18th a vote to greatly restrict the right to protest: raising fines for arrests during protests; making unreasonable demands on protest organizers, such as one marshal for every 100 marchers; a list in advance of all signs and banners in a march; and a list of all equipment for amplification of sound one week before any march. Also he wants permits for any sidewalk protest, which would be a major blow to unions and community groups.
Also, while the city has granted permits for a rally and march on the first day of the May 19th – 21st summits, organizers were told that permits could be revoked by the Secret Service.
We are asking supporters of the march against NATO/G8 to call Mayor Rahm Emmanuel on Tuesday January 17th. (If you live in the City of Chicago, please also call your alderperson as well).
Phone number 312-744-5000
Demand the following:
1) Back off the changes to the ordinances covering protests and public assemblies.
2) Publicly call on the Secret Service to permit CANG8 to use the permit sites granted by the city.
Then, report your call afterwards by sending an email to cangate2012@gmail.com
Background:
On January 12, the City of Chicago granted permits to the Coalition Against NATO/G8 War and Poverty Agenda (CANG8) for a rally and march on May 19. CANG8 is mobilizing against the summits of NATO/G8 occurring in Chicago that weekend. The two summits will be overlapping over 3 days.
CANG8 will continue building broad support for their demands for permits and exposing the NATO and G8 agendas of bankers, generals and heads of state of the wealthiest nations.
CANG8 is planning a family-friendly demonstration to take their message to within sight and sound of the McCormick Place where the summits are scheduled.
On the permit letters to the coalition from the City, a brief waiver statement reads:
Please note that the G8/NATO summits have been designated by the Department of Homeland Security as a Nation Special Security Event, which means the U.S. Secret Service is mandated by Federal law to head the design and implementation of an operational security plan for the summits. In the event the Secret Service designates specific security zones or areas that impact your event location, the Public Building Commission will work with you to find an alternate location for your event.
This threat of the Secret Service intervention is real. It appears the joint city-federal agency overseeing the summits might stop protests from reaching the eyes and ears of the rich and powerful who will be at McCormick Place in May.
In mid December Mayor Emanuel proposed the City Council vote to accept what he called temporary changes to city ordinances to make protests harder to organize and to threaten anyone who speaks up with enormous fines and police repression. In early January, the Mayor flipped the script, apologized for any miss understanding and said the ordinance changes would be permanent.
City council leaders were said to be in the “yes” camp, supporting the mayor, but a continuing pressure campaign that drew in Occupy Chicago, SEIU, the Teachers Union and civil liberties advocates softened their outright support. As reported in the press, on Jan. 12, the mayor’s office witnessed a rebellion by alderpersons who, for the first time, have said “no” to Emanuel.
The city council is scheduled to vote on Emanuel’s ordinance changes at its meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 18. Two committees of the city council are scheduled to discuss the changes on Jan. 17. CANG8 is calling for a national call in day to demand Emanuel stop his efforts to deny the right to protest, and locally we are asking allies to call their alderperson to say no to the changes in the ordinances.
For more information about CANG8, check here
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