The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #112667   Message #2386753
Posted By: beardedbruce
11-Jul-08 - 01:57 PM
Thread Name: BS: Protest and the Flag
Subject: RE: BS: Protest and the Flag
Free speech zones were used in Boston at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. The free speech zones organized by the authorities in Boston were boxed in by concrete walls, invisible to the Fleet Center where the convention was held and criticized harshly as a "protest pen" or "Boston's Camp X-Ray".[10] "Some protesters for a short time Monday [July 26, 2004] converted the zone into a mock prison camp by donning hoods and marching in the cage with their hands behind their backs."[11] A coalition of groups protesting the Iraq War challenged the planned protest zones. U. S. District Court Judge Douglas Woodlock was sympathetic to their request: "One cannot conceive of what other design elements could be put into a space to create a more symbolic affront to the role of free expression."[12]. However, he ultimately rejected the petition to move the protest zones closer to the Fleet Center.[13]