Berkeley braces Sunday for possible free-speech fight
August 28, 2017 by admin
Filed under Lingerie Events
SAN FRANCISCO — Police in Berkeley set up barricades around a city park Sunday preparing for possible demonstrations even though the organizer of a right-wing rally scheduled to be held there called off the event, citing fears of violence.
Police led bomb-sniffing dogs on early morning walks through Berkeley’s Civic Center Park, where the rally billed “No to Marxism in America” and a counter protest, had been scheduled. The park has been a site of political clashes and violence over the past year.
Another counter protest called the “Bay Area Rally Against Hate” was scheduled to take place Sunday on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, despite calls by university police for demonstrators to stay away.
That rally comes a day after a rally planned by a right-wing group fizzled amid throngs of counter-protesters in San Francisco. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee declared victory over a group he branded as inviting hate. Berkeley is the city that gave birth to the 1960s Free Speech Movement but authorities refused to issue a permit allowing Sunday’s event.
Sunday’s organizer Amber Cummings, a transgender woman who is a supporter of President Donald Trump, has repeatedly denounced racism. Cummings canceled her event — saying that demonization by mayors in both cities and left-wing extremists made it impossible to speak out.
Cummings said she would be the sole attendee. In a message to the media Saturday she said she might be forced to cancel if she is not provided police protection.
The left-wing group By Any Means Necessary, which has been involved in violent confrontations, had vowed to shut down the rally at Civic Center Park.
Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin urged counter-protesters to stay away.
Police early Sunday set up the cement barricades around park’s perimeter and erected metal barricades manned by officers at apparent entry points. By midmorning police in riot gear stood guarding the park as dozens of people milled around across the street. Officers allowed people to enter the park, checking bags of everyone who passed.
Berkeley police were planning for a number of contingencies, police spokeswoman Jenn Coats said in an email Saturday. The city has banned a long list of items from the park, including baseball bats, dogs and skateboards. People at the park are also not allowed to cover their faces with scarves or bandanas.
Cummings has said on social media and in media interviews that Marxism is the real evil and that members of the anti-fascist movement are terrorists.
“I’m not safe to walk down the road with an American flag in this county,” she said to reporters in Berkeley last week.
Saturday’s event was organized by a group known as Patriot Prayer. Its leader Joey Gibson, a frequent Portland protest organizer, has also repeatedly disavowed racism. Asked Saturday whether he had any plans to go to Berkeley, Gibson, the leader of Patriot Prayer, said he would “analyze the situation.”
Student activism was born during the 1960s free-speech movement at Berkeley, when thousands of students at the university mobilized to demand that the school drop its ban on political activism.
However, the deadly confrontation in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Aug. 12 during a rally of white supremacists led San Francisco police and civil leaders to rethink their response to protests.
– Paul Elias
