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I'm sure the protesters / demonstrators will have to endure something similar to what happened to the World Economic Forum protesters, as was written in this article from 2002!
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Eroding our right to assemble?: Police repression at the WEF protest.
(Activism)(World Economic Forum)
off our backs; 3/1/2002; Killian, D.
Activists protested against the recent meetings of the World Economic Forum (WEF) held in New York City from January 3 to February 4. A large number of activists were arrested. These articles, written by women who attended the protests, report on the protests and discuss police actions and protest tactics.
I attended two very different protests during the WEF: a demonstration organized by UNITE! (a trade union for garment workers), supported by the local labor council and the AFL-CIO and, two days later, a demonstration organized by A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), assisted by the International Action Center and endorsed by numerous progressive organizations. The one organized by UNITE! was single issue--sweatshop labor--and was held outside a GAP store on Fifth Avenue. The one organized by ANSWER was held at the belly of the beast, outside the Waldorf Astoria and the WEF meetings themselves, and addressed a broad range of issues. Despite these differences, both were treated the same by the NYPD: oppressively.
Unlike other actions, there were no tear gas, plastic bullets, or mass arrests. But the cops didn't need to use these tactics. In effect, the warning was already given in Seattle and Genoa. And in the weeks leading up to the WEF, New Yorkers were given several messages. For example, while leafleting to build WEF actions, I encountered hesitation. People were interested in the issue: protesting AOL Time Warner (a sponsor of the WEF) for their blacklisting authors over copyright issues. (*) But when people realized the protest was part of larger protests at the WEF, they were scared. "I'm angry about this, and I'll help out...but I'm not going to the WEF" was a typical response. The Village Voice, which likes to present itself as progressive, ran a cover story featuring walls of police in riot gear herding up demonstrators. The demonstration wasn't real--this was a WEF practice session. A police official interviewed on NPR said he "hoped" there would be no violence. Before the WEF even started, New Yorkers wer e encouraged to stay away from a ten-block area around the Waldorf, closed to vehicle traffic. Banks and other hot spots were being patrolled by private armed guards with attack dogs. New York increasingly looked to me like scenes from a WWII film.
In some ways, such tactics are not new and are a sign of the movement's success. When citizens in this country ever start to have a real impact, be it the labor movement of the thirties, civil rights in the fifties, the antiwar movement of the seventies, or AIDS activism in the eighties, you have police beating up activists, water-gunning us down, or the army (via the National Guard) firing on innocent civilians. Since we do not have the money or connections to get our message out the way the World Bank and the police can, our bodies are the front line--and we (and the police) know it. What's changed in recent years, and culminated with the WEF protests in NY, is that the police are now restricting our very physical access to a site. They've gotten increasingly media-savvy. After 9/11 in NY, no one wanted more disruption in the streets. Rather than get violent (remember: they're the ones with guns, horses, and shields-not us), they clearly decided that those who couldn't be scared away (via media coverage an d police violence at past actions) would be physically obstructed.
On the day of the UNITE! rally, every parallel block to the Fifth Avenue site was shut down. Block after block, when trying to gain access, I was told by cops that "the next street" was open--and of course it was not. At one point, me in my union cap and jacket, I told a cop I was trying to reach the AFL-CIO rally which, at that location, was clearly audible a block away. The cop told me with a straight face that he knew nothing of a rally scheduled for that day. The street was closed. Period. I didn't get into it with him, but I was tempted to ask if he needed hearing aids.
On the day of the ANSWER demo, it was even worse. Like a game of Chinese checkers, not only were parallel avenues shut down, but alternating streets. After going up several blocks on one avenue to reach a street supposedly open, when you had gone up that street to the next avenue, it was shut. The cops blocking the way directed you to street so-and so being open--which meant retracing your steps, going up more blocks, and trying another route, again and again. Those wearing business suits or uniforms and who could show identification to prove that they worked in one of the offices on the shut-off street would be allowed entry.
But those clearly trying to reach the protest site--a protest arranged in advance with the police and with a legal permit--were turned away. At the site, protesters were corralled into narrow pens that scaled several: blocks down from the Waldorf, making it difficult to see or hear the speakers and minimizing the number of those allowed to be seen or heard directly outside the Waldorf. While allowing the impression in the media that the turn out was low (even with a wide angle lens, it's impossible to get in one shot all the protesters present), it also fragmented demonstrators, making the heavy police presence even more intimidating because we were so isolated from one another. Even getting to a toilet was difficult (and closely supervised 'by police, guarding the porta-potty) and those who left to make a phone call or get something hot to drink were not allowed to return. Once a corral was considered full by the cops, it was shut off. One woman, who briefly left the protest site, was trying to get back int o the same "pen" where she had left her teenage daughter. The cops were unmoved. And not only were we isolated from each other within pens, marchers from Central Park were blocked from joining protesters already at the Waldorf, as previously arranged.
Oppression by the police is nothing new. But the insidious and calculated ways the police are increasingly eroding away our rights needs to be closely examined, to both turn this erosion back and bring the movement forward. Unfortunately, since Seattle and 9/11, the labor movement has been distancing itself from the larger anti-globalization movement; as seen at the WEF protests, labor organized its own separate events and did not endorse the major rallies organized by more progressive organizations such as ANSWER and Another World is Possible (the march from Central Park). But in the eyes of the police, we're clearly all the same. The way the police segregated protesters at the WEF is, in some ways, analogous to how the movement can segregate itself. If we are to stay strong and prove victorious, we need to maintain a united front. We need to be clear about who has caused the violence in recent years--at worst, black block anarchists have broken windows and trashed chain stores. A broken window is not the s ame as a person's life--which the cops are more than ready to take. Global corporate control is a form of violence, leading to death around the world. The NYPD's "crowd control" at the WEF is a form of violence, violating our first amendment rights to free assembly and free speech. We need to continue to fight with our bodies, simply by turning up and affirming our right to turn up. This affirmation can take the form of non-violent resistance and civil disobedience and continued demonstrations, and even destruction of property. It can take the form of legal action, affirming through the courts our legal right to assembly. Regardless, we need to send a message loud and clear back to the police: We will not be divided. We will not be deterred. Whose streets?
OUR STREETS!
(*.) for more information, see www.nwu.org
COPYRIGHT 2002 Off Our Backs, Inc.
http://www.highbeam.com/library/doc...id=1G1:84246709
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Then again, after what happened at the inaugural parade... You never know what will happen this second time around. 
PROTEST BRIEFLY HALTS INAUGURAL PARADE
United Press International; 1/20/2001
Protest briefly halts inaugural parade
WASHINGTON, Jan. 20, (UPI) -- President George W. Bush's inaugural parade Saturday was brought briefly to a halt on Pennsylvania Avenue near the focal point of rowdy but largely peaceful protests by demonstrators -- who burned American flags, booed the Army band, and threw dozens of plastic bottles and coins at the limousine carrying the official party.
At the Navy Memorial near the Archives building on Pennsylvania Avenue, a solid rank of protesters were penned in by police in riot gear.
Masked and black-clad anarchists among the protesters lit smoke bombs as the parade approached, others displayed hand-written placards inscribed with slogans like "Fraud W. Bush" and "Hail to the Thief" -- clearly visible to participants in the parade from Capitol Hill to the White House.
Danielle Redden, an activist with the Midnight Special Law Collective providing legal aid for the protesters, told United Press International that five demonstrators were arrested there.
She said they were members of the Revolutionary Anti-Authoritarian Brigade, also known as the Black Bloc -- an umbrella organization for dozens of anarchist groups from across the country.
Redden estimated that 300 members of the Black Bloc were in Washington for the inauguration protests.
Authorities would not confirm why the head of the parade -- led by limousines carrying the newly sworn in president and vice president and their families -- briefly halted between the Memorial and Freedom Plaza, an area set aside for protesters.
"They will make that call 1/8to stop3/8 whenever they feel it is appropriate," said Jim Mackin, spokesman for the Secret Service. He added that the parade could have stopped at the discretion of the agent in charge of its security, or for "logistical reasons," such as scheduling.
Meanwhile, further along the parade route at Freedom Plaza, protesters gave loud voice to their feelings, but did not throw anything. As Bush drove by the reviewing stand, demonstrators booed loudly, hoisted signs in the air and chanted "Thief!"
Earlier, as the president was being sworn in at the U.S. Capitol, a tense standoff between police and protesters played out just yards from the White House. Uniformed officers lined the road, at the junction of 14th and K streets, restricting movement as a police helicopter clattered overhead.
A crowd of about 500 people with placards bearing slogans like "Don't blame me, I voted with the majority," or calling for the freeing of convicted murderer Mumia Abu Jamal, chanted "Hail to the Thief" and cheered one demonstrator who clambered atop a traffic light and set fire to an American flag.
After burning the flag, the demonstrator flung himself down into the crowd where willing arms bore him aloft safely away from police, who -- in an apparent attempt to arrest him -- surged forward, initiating a bout of pushing and shoving. Then -- as if at some hidden signal -- the demonstrators immediately left the vicinity, to join a larger group of their compatriots down the block.
One demonstrator told United Press International, "I am here because democracy is deformed."
Others were blunter. "F**k the police state," they cried.
Several told UPI that they had voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader and would have protested even had the Democratic candidate -- then-Vice President Al Gore -- been the victor.
Others disagreed.
Prior to the swearing in, Bush supporters at the Navy Memorial who paid $15 a ticket to sit in the bleachers to watch the parade booed as protestors burned a four by three foot American flag on the opposite side of the street in a political version of dueling banjos. Soon after, as the president's motorcade drove by en route to the Capitol, demonstrators raised a black and red anarchist flag over the Navy Memorial, prompting police to move in on the crowd of several hundred.
Bush supporters from across the street chanted, "Push 'em back! Push 'em back! Way back!" as the police cleared the base of the monument. Ray Meadows, 56, a Texas County Commissioner from Waco, said of the flag burning: "I hope they were cold. Surely it wouldn't have been anything else."
Police on the street told UPI that they had strategically diverted many of the protesters to cordoned off areas in downtown Washington, in an effort to thin out the unruly but peaceful crowds estimated at 10, 000.
At Freedom Plaza, scores of demonstrators took over spectator bleacher spaces, which had been reserved by inaugural organizers for ticket holders.
"It's too late now," National Park Service Capt. Neil Lauro said when asked if the people were to be removed. "We have to assume the people who had tickets to those bleachers did not show up."
The protesters' causes were as various as the demonstrators themselves. Atheists rubbed shoulders with abortion-rights activists, environmentalists with anarchists. The demonstrations were the largest since Richard Nixon's 1973 ceremony.
The International Action Center, Justice Action Movement and National Action Network -- the latter led by Rev. Al Sharpton -- are upset over the outcome of the election and what they consider the disenfranchisement of minority voters, among a host of other issues.
One protester -- part of a small group called the League of Cooperation -- who went by the name Poppa Crazee, told UPI, "Our big issue is the freedom to wield puppets in public spaces."
Eilleen Crimmons, a 55 year old woman from New York City said, "I was particularly concerned with Bush's policies on capital punishment." Mike McLean, a self identified anarchist and high school student from New Jersey said he came to "stand up for peaceful revolution."
"If Vice President Gore were here, we would still be here, because they have all sold out to the Religious right," said Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists."
Johnson, flanked by a person wearing a Bush face mask and holding a Bible stuffed with cash, said she is opposed to Bush's school voucher and charity proposals because they would put federal funds into the hands of religious organizations.
Atheists must "start coming out of the closet like the gays" to press their arguments, she said.
Doris Haddick, known as "Granny D," the 91-year-old woman who walked 3,000 miles across the United States in support of campaign finance reform, spoke out against Bush's inauguration at Dupont Circle.
"There are many people in America who are angry and have many things to be angry about," she said. "It's normal to be angry about unfairness, criminality, and injustice, and enough raw deals to keep us toasty warm with rage."
Sharpton -- leading a march organized by the Detroit chapter of the NAACP -- said, "Bush says to get back, we say fight back," adding, "the man who lost the vote is being sworn in to lead the nation."
"His friends say get over it. We will not get over it. Getting the right to vote was too painful, the fight was too hard, and too many people died," Sharpton said Saturday before his swearing in as "President of the People."
Sharpton said protests by his group were to underscore "that they are perpetrating the greatest untruth in world history."
"President Bush will have to do more than use corporate greed, Bush will have to do more than use his police force, and he'll have to do more than get messy with Jesse," he said in an apparent reference to the withdrawal of Rev. Jesse Jackson, leader of the Rainbow Coalition, from participation in the protests following revelations earlier in the week that he had fathered a child out of wedlock.
Nine protest points were set up near and on Pennsylvania Avenue, and satellite points at Dupont Circle, Stanton Park and in the Adams Morgan section of Washington. JAM and the IAC lost a court challenge Friday seeking to prevent security checkpoints from being set up at 10 sites along Pennsylvania Avenue.
Over the past week, members of the New York-based IAC and other organizations traveled to Washington for a week of teach-ins, seminars, civil disobedience training, and even lessons on how to walk on stilts, culminating in the protests along the parade route on "I-20", or Inauguration Day.
The National Organization for Women, the New Black Panther Party and the Voter March, a voting rights group, among others sold tickets for seats on buses or encouraged individuals and groups to pack up the car and travel into town with friends.
Protesters organized via an intricate network of e-mail, cell phones, and fax machines with some using personal credit cards to rent venues and print literature. To help ease some of the financial burden, organizers planned three counter-inaugural balls to coincide with the Republican affairs scheduled for Saturday night.
(c) 2001 UPI All rights reserved.
Copyright 2001 United Press International (via Comtex). All rights reserved
http://www.highbeam.com/library/doc...ID=1P1:39901678
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