Last week ANSWER LA received a permit for the upcoming March 19 protest from the Police Commission. On Tuesday, they denied us the already granted permit, something they’d never done before, because business interests in the area said, heck, this would be just too inconvenient. Funny, I don’t recall them saying that during the recent Academy Awards when parts of Hollywood were locked down for days with multiple streets and a major subway station closed. Nor should the constitutional right of free speech be derailed by business interests because they find our political views bothersome.
We fought back and won.
From the ANSWER LA listserv.
The LA Police Commission today reversed its unlawful denial and granted the permit to march. This was after the National Lawyers Guild promised to file a lawsuit against the Police Commission and the ANSWER Coalition called a press conference in front of LAPD headquarters.
Jim Lafferty, Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild, Los Angeles, said, “The Police Commission’s reasons for yesterday’s permit denial amounted to nothing more than pandering to commercial interests at the expense of the First Amendment right to free expression. Every year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Disney and other private commercial entities are given free and full permission to close and use the same area sought to be used by the ANSWER Coalition. The streets are closed for a much longer period of time than requested for this Saturday’s anti-war march and rally.”
Big business interests want to take away the right of the anti-war movement and the people to demonstrate in Hollywood. The people won’t stand for this. We fought for and won the right to protest on March 19 and we’ll continue fighting for our rights against right-wing attacks and corporate greed.
All the more reason to get in the streets of Hollywood on Saturday, rain or shine.