Animal-rights group sues city over Olympics protest permits
By The Associated Press
10.24.01
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SALT LAKE CITY — A group planning to protest during the 2002 Winter Games says the city’s inaction on several demonstration permits violates its free speech. The group filed a lawsuit in federal court Oct. 22.
In March, the Utah Animal Rights Coalition filed five applications with the city that would have allowed them to demonstrate near downtown Olympic venues during the games.
The city has neither approved nor denied those applications.
“We haven’t denied the request,” said City Attorney Roger Cutler. He hadn’t seen the lawsuit and wouldn’t comment on it.
City officials and Olympic planners are working out the details of how to balance public safety and free-speech rights, he said.
The lawsuit, filed by civil rights attorney Brian Barnard, claims the city’s lack of action violates the group’s rights.
“The city is playing games,” Barnard wrote. “The Constitution mandates that the city process applications in a timely fashion.”
Without the permits, the animal-rights group says it can’t plan its activities for the February games.
“We’ve been waiting. Now with three months left, we can’t tell people we’ll be able to legally protest,” Sean Diener, executive director of the Utah Animal Rights Coalition. “It thwarts our ability to effectively protest.”
He’s expecting protesters from around the country to show up, and he said they’ve pledged to be nonviolent.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, public safety and public demonstrations have become competing interests in the city’s Olympic plan, Cutler said.
A spokesman for Mayor Rocky Anderson said the city would be ready to rule on the permits soon, but he didn’t set a deadline.
“We haven’t denied anything. We’re working out the final details and possible limitations,” said spokesman Joshua Ewing.
In August, city officials announced a plan that would have allowed a limited number of protesters at five protest zones, two of them inside the downtown Olympic Square.
Cutler now calls that plan a “discussion draft” and, like Olympic security planners, says everything is being re-evaluated following the terrorist attacks.
The permit applications from the animal-rights group were for areas outside the designated protest zones.
Meanwhile, an animal-rights group has vowed to demonstrate this weekend in Arkansas, with or without a permit.
Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, based in Philadelphia, says 300 to 500 demonstrators will be in Arkansas to protest Stephens Inc.’s financial support of a company that tests drugs on animals.
Yesterday, the group learned they were given an incorrect application form, but City Attorney Tom Carpenter said the city’s recently revised ordinance allows a grace period for groups to demonstrate who haven’t obtained a permit in the early weeks of the ordinance. He said he did not foresee a problem with the group demonstrating, whether they had the permit by this weekend or not.
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