When Judge Marcia Krieger ruled yesterday that the city’s plans for protesters are A-okay, convention planners no doubt breathed a huge sigh of relief that they wouldn’t have to dismantle the massive media tent they’ve erected between the demonstration zone and the Pepsi Center.
But the sigh was short lived, because later that evening, protest organizers with Tent State University announced some rather clever plans to subvert the ban on camping in municipal parks by saying they will encourage their throng to march from City Park at curfew and set up shop all night inside the demonstration area. From the Rocky Mountain News's story:
Adam Jung, an organizer for Tent State University, mocked the city's allocation of the protest zone for demonstrators at the southeast corner of the arena's parking lot, near Seventh Street and the Aurora Parkway. Nonetheless, he said, the demonstration site would be the location in which hundreds - or thousands - of protesters would converge on once they're booted out of City Park and they begin the more-than-two-mile trek to the Pepsi Center.
"We have felt that the city's stance on this issue was based on their desire to suppress the demonstrations and any message that exposes the Democratic Party's refusal to end the war," Jung said as another protester, Karen McGuire, in full Revolutionary War regalia, played The Battle Hymn of the Republic on a fife.Click here to check out some photos that Westword snapped from inside the “Freedom Cage.” –Jared Jacang Maher"But we were not seeing the big picture. The city of Denver does not oppose free speech. They love free speech so much they just want to protect and secure it with razor wire and caging. Because of their passion for the First Amendment the city has provided one place for demonstrators to be overnight - the freedom cage. Each night demonstrators will take the freedom cage and transform it into the 'Freedomville Shantytown.' "
By morning protesters plan to pack up their gear and head back to City Park where they will set up their camps, continue their anti-war messages and be entertained by music and speeches.
