{"article":{"id":162,"heading":"Outrage in Philadelphia! Philadelphia police shut down protest venue.","author":"By David Morgan (Reuters)","created":"2000-07-23 04:00:00","modified":"2000-07-25 13:15:19","last_modified":"Tue, 25 Jul 2000 20:15:19","article":"
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - With the Republican National Convention barely
a
week away, tensions between the city and protest organizers escalated on
Friday when building safety inspectors closed one of the protesters'
downtown
meeting venues.
Activists also claimed to find electronic listening devices in a group
home,
hours after city police admitted they had been keeping protest
organizers
under surveillance for weeks.
``We're outraged, we're angry and we're going to talk about it. But
we're not
panicking,'' said Julie Davids, a member of the Philadelphia Direct
Action
Group, a coalition planning civil disobedience protests for the July 31
to
Aug. 3 convention.
Members of the Spiral Q Puppet Theater said inspectors from the city
Department of Licenses and Inspections showed up at their premises with
police around 1 p.m. EDT and ordered them to close because of potential
fire
hazards.
Activists from two local groups, the Kensington Welfare Rights Union and
Asian-Americans United, were using the theater as a venue for making
puppets
and banners for a protest march set to take place on opening day of the
convention, organizers said.
There was no immediate comment from city officials and no arrests were
reported.
Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union said it was looking into
claims
that listening devices were found after a burglary at an activist group
home
in West Philadelphia, where unidentified men had earlier been seen
photographing residents.
ACLU legal director Stefan Presser said he would find out if a court had
ordered audio surveillance. ``If not, I will take this matter and put it
before a federal judge,'' he told reporters.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators, representing causes ranging from
environmental protection and AIDS research to women's rights and social
justice, are due in Philadelphia next weekend for what organizers say
could
be the largest protests seen at a U.S. political convention.
But Philadelphia officials worry that protest violence could hamper the
city's ability to showcase its economic and cultural renaissance after
decades of decline.
City police on Friday admitted that they have been keeping protest
organizers
under surveillance by photographing activists as they arrived for
planning
sessions in another part of the city. A half-dozen such incidents have
been
reported.
``We were watching. We were making surveillance efforts. It's just
prudent
preparations for anything,'' said Officer David Yarnell, a department
spokesman. ``There are people who may do more than exercise their First
Amendment rights.''
The raid on the puppet theater took place as protest leaders met with
senior
city officials, including the deputy commissioner in charge of policing
the
convention, to ask that out-of-town demonstrators be allowed to camp out
in
city parks.
Theater members said city inspectors complained of potential fire
hazards
posed by a propane tank, an extension cord that ran between two floors
and
the lack of an on-site
fire safety system.
But organizers condemned the shutdown as a preemptive strike by city
authorities intended to dissuade demonstrators from plans to disrupt the
Republican convention.\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"The Philadelphia police have violated basic civil rights by shutting down an R2k organizing space. This is obviously a tactic that the police are taking from the DC protest and will likely use in August.","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2000\/07\/162.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}