People's Democracy

NYC Police Refuses Permission For Feb 15 March

ON January 29, the New York City police said it would not issue a permit for the United For Peace & Justice (UFPJ), an anti-war coalition, to hold a massive march on February 15. They said under no circumstances could there be a march bigger than 10,000 people. Why? Because the police cannot manage it.

The matter was to come up before a court very soon, and anti-war groups decided to assemble in the court in large numbers on the day. In addition, they are also bombarding the addresses of police officials and the mayor with letters demanding that the officials must fulfil their constitutional duty. Prominent supporters of democratic rights have been mobilised to demand that the mayor must intervene to guarantee that there would be no obstacles put to the march programme on February 15.

According to Leslie Cagan, co-chairperson of the United For Peace & Justice coalition, the New York police informed their lawyers on January 29 that they would NOT issue a parade permit for the demonstration. The coalition then challenged this decision in court and the New York Civil Liberties Union was to represent its case.

The police said they could grant the coalition permission to have a rally, but would not give it the permit to march --- for safety and security reasons. But whatever the court decision, the coalition has decided not to take the refusal lying down. 

By denying a parade permit to the UFPJ, organisers of the February 15 anti-war protest, the ruling class has thrown down the gauntlet. Now the job of the anti-war movement and all defenders of civil liberties is to cram it down their throats.

The coalition does not think it is a case of some local cop being stupid or just an attempt to see if the movement would passively accept the restriction. Nor is it under an illusion that the judiciary will fix things right.

On the contrary, in the given political context, the coalition is sure that this is no bumbling mis-step motivated by local concerns. For, already the administration is on an all-out push for war and has seen the strength and impact of the anti-war movement, which has heightened hesitancy in some in the ruling class circles.

The anti-war groups have also noted how similar things are happening in London around the same time. There the British authorities are attempting to prevent a rally in Hyde Park on that very day. In London the cops are more concerned about the grass in public parks, and cite it as a reason for not allowing anti-war protests.

To these groups, the New York attack on civil liberties has much to do with the Ashcroft Raids against immigrants, with the trampling on habeas corpus provision, with the Guantánamo concentration camp, with the privacy-denying Total Information Awareness programme, with the unconstitutional Patriot Act and union-busting Homeland Security Act. The whole point is to intimidate the anti-war activists, to silence them, to cow the US working people down into submission.

The anti-war groups are sure that if they keep demonstrating in hundreds of thousands and reaching out, if they continue organising in schools, work places and communities, they would be able to turn the anti-war movement into the voice of the majority, of the working people. Then the ruling class campaign against democratic rights will certainly collapse.

The US people have already seen what happened to the repressive Cold War climate of McCarthyism when it came up against the blast furnace of the civil rights, anti-war and student movements. McCarthyism collapsed because people were no longer afraid.

The recent round of anti-war movement has already dealt major blows to the ‘patriotic’ hysteria the administration tried to build up in the wake of 9/11. If the movement continues, that hysteria and the witch-hunting may fall apart. Especially because the latest version of McCarthyism has much less firm roots than the anti-communist one of the late 1940s and 1950s. It is also not backed by a capitalist boom that may help placate people with economic concessions.

As a prominent anti-war activist, Jose G Perez, put it, the latest refusal to hold a rally is tantamount to the Bush administration taking the position that the government will decide when, where and how the people may exercise their democratic rights. And soon it will be whether they can exercise them at all, and shortly after that, “What democratic rights?”

The refusal is an escalation of the rulers’ offensive against the democratic rights of the American people. It is a crucial battle that has to be fought, with all weapons at the people’s disposal --- not just lawsuits.

Perez adds: A lawsuit may be a fine thing, but especially under current circumstances one cannot believe in the fairy tale that courts stand as a bulwark against the ruling class’s assault on freedom. Quite the contrary, they are an integral part of that class. Hence the anti-war movement must steel itself for possibly losing the court case, and even being hit with an injunction against the march.

The UFPJ is striving to back its lawsuit with a massive protest campaign and a firm decision that the prohibition won’t go unchallenged. It said the people would defend their democratic rights, by any means necessary.