No Permit, But Protest to Go On

By Dan Mihalopoulos
Tribune staff reporter

February 25, 2004

Despite Chicago's denial of their request for a permit, anti-war activists are vowing to mark the one-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq with a protest downtown, starting where police arrested hundreds of demonstrators last year.

Peace activists blasted Mayor Richard Daley's administration Tuesday for denying a permit for 4,000 protesters to walk from Michigan Avenue and Pearson Street to Federal Plaza between noon and 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 20.

Police and protesters clashed downtown on last March 20, when more than 10,000 war opponents demonstrated a day after the invasion of Iraq began.

In a news conference outside the mayor's City Hall office, activists said the city's denial was the latest chapter in a long history of official attempts to prevent left-leaning groups from voicing their opinions.

"Unfortunately, we've got Richard M. Daley repeating the attacks on civil liberties that Richard J. Daley, his father, is so infamous for," said Andy Thayer of the Chicago Coalition Against War and Racism.

But city officials said their decision has nothing to do with the political beliefs of the war opponents. Officials said they must seek a balance between the rights of protesters and the rights of motorists and pedestrians in a heavily trafficked part of the city.

A march following the route proposed by activists "would just have been a huge disruption to downtown traffic," said Brian Steele, spokesman for the Chicago Department of Transportation.

The activists wanted permission to use all of the southbound lanes of Michigan Avenue and the entire width of the road along stretches of State, Randolph and Adams Streets, he said.

The proposed staging area for the march would block the entrances to stores and parking garages.

"They were wanting to do this at possibly the busiest location in the city on a Saturday morning," police spokesman David Bayless said.

Activists met with police officials twice, on Feb. 5 and Feb. 13, but could not reach an agreement that would have allowed the march to proceed legally.

The protesters rejected the city's offers to grant a permit for a march that would follow a different route.

Officials called for beginning the protest at Washington Square Park, 901 N. Clark St., and proceeding south down Clark into the Loop. Another proposal from the city would have routed the protest down Columbus Drive.

The federal Department of Homeland Security has granted approval to end the demonstration in Federal Plaza, activists said.

Protesters said they would insist on marching down Michigan Avenue, even if that meant taking the sidewalks, to attract as much attention as possible.

"Freedom of speech and freedom of assembly also mean you should be heard and you should be seen, and the city of Chicago would prevent that," said Dorothy Pagosa, a Franciscan nun who works for the 8th Day Center for Justice.

Pagosa said she spent 17 hours in police custody last year and is ready to face arrest again.

Protesters closed Lake Shore Drive in an anti-war march conducted without a permit March 20.

In a pending federal lawsuit against police, activists charge that police arrested more than 800 war opponents without probable cause, sometimes using excessive force, when the march reached the area around Michigan and Chicago Avenues.

Officers arrested 543 people, largely on reckless-conduct charges. But 190 of them were soon released without charges because of confusion over the identity of their arresting officers, police said.

Although some of those charged pleaded guilty, prosecutors dropped charges against most of them.