Judge deplores but OK's site for protestersPage 2 of 2 -- Woodlock said he had initially assumed that activists were exaggerating when they likened the protest zone near Canal Street to an internment camp. But he said that after touring the area for 90 minutes Wednesday, he concluded that comparison was "an understatement."
The zone covers 25,800 square feet, according to the city's latest measurements, smaller than officials previously said. It is a rectangle bordered by cement barriers, a double row of chain-line fencing, heavy black netting, and tightly woven plastic mesh. Coils of razor wire line the train tracks, which slope downward to 5 feet, 9 inches above the ground. "One cannot conceive of other elements [that could be] put in place to create a space that's more of an affront to the idea of free expression than the designated demonstration zone," Woodlock said. Nonetheless, Woodlock said that unruly demonstrators at other political events have made the precautions necessary to foil protesters who might hurl objects at delegates arriving on buses. Boston Police Superintendent Robert Dunford has pointed out that violent protesters used slingshots to fire ball bearings at police and conventioneers during the 2000 Democratic convention in Los Angeles. Assistant US Attorney George Henderson told Woodlock in a private conference that Secret Service agents had gathered intelligence about similar possible threats by protesters at this convention, which begins Monday. But Woodlock said the information did not affect his decision. The allegation was briefly disclosed in open court yesterday, but federal officials refused to elaborate. The judge at one point dangled the possibility of widening the zone by about 20 feet into an adjacent parking lot where dozens of buses carrying delegates will arrive. But city officials said the buses will need 36 berths to unload passengers, and that would make expanding the protest area impossible. More than once, Woodlock called the dispute over the enclosed protest area a "festering boil" and indicated his sympathies for the activists. But the activists later dismissed his laments. "We don't need tears," he said Steven Kirschbaum, a member of the Coalition to Protest the DNC, which prevailed in its effort to march on Causeway Street on Sunday. "We need justice. We challenge the very notion of a protest pen." Tania Vamont -- a 24-year-old graphic designer from Cambridge and a leader of the Bl(a)ck Tea Society, a group that calls itself antiauthoritarian -- said: "I'm deeply saddened that [the judge] acknowledged that it's worse than an internment camp, but `that's OK because that's what our world is like today.' "
Her organization was one of three that obtained city permits to use the protest zone and sued after the barriers went up this week. The other two groups were United for Justice with Peace and the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
|
