Protesters win Permits to march on Chicago NATO Summit

(From CANG8)

 

CHICAGO, IL – After a sometimes torturous battle to win permits to march on the site of this year’s NATO summit in Chicago, organizers with the Coalition Against the NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda (CANG8) announced that the City had granted permits for a rally and march just 10 minutes before today’s 5 PM deadline.

CANG8 won a permit for a 12 noon, Sunday, May 20th rally at Petrillo Bandshell, corner of Jackson Blvd. & Columbus Drive, without rent or fees.  The march will go westbound on Jackson to State Street, south on State to Harrison Street, east on Harrison past the military recruiting office on Harrison to Michigan Avenue, south on Michigan to Cermak Road, east on Cermak to Indiana Avenue with a rally in the street on Indiana between Cermak and 23rd Street.

While we are obviously happy that we have won these permits, our optimism is tempered by the experience of other cities which have had these ‘National Special Security Events.’ The experience with NSSE’s elsewhere has been that just weeks before the events, the Secret Service swoops in junks the permits granted by local authorities, setting up yet another permit battle on the eve of the event, so we’re not out of the woods yet.

We know that Mayor Emanuel, with one of the most hawkish voting records of the Chicago-area delegation when he was congressman, eagerly supports the wars and has done his best to sideline anti-war voices with this permit battle.  With his support of the National Defense Authorization Act doing away with habeus corpus and his support of assassinations abroad, we also know that President Obama cannot be counted on to support our 1st Amendment right to march within sight and sound of the McCormick Place summit either.

From Tahrir Square to McCormick Place, rulers are not fond of free speech that counters their policies.  They know that if we win a good hearing for our views, it will be more difficult to pursue their pro-war policies. That is why politicians in Chicago 1968 did their best to curtail the 1st Amendment, and why contemporary politicians try to do so as well.

More information about CANG8 activities can be found at our website, www.CANG8.org