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The G20 meetings and urban protest policy
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The Group of 20 (G20) is a group of financial ministers and central bank leaders from 19 countries and the EU, including the developed nations that make up the Group of Eight (G8). They are meeting this week in Pittsburgh to coordinate their governments' responses to the economic crisis, among other things. For more information about what the G20 is and what it does,see the other links at the bottom of this page.
I'm thinking about the G20 today because of the police response to the G20 protesters, and because the tenth anniversary of Seattle's WTO protests is coming up. In 1999, the goal of many marchers and protesters was to shut down the WTO meetings - and they succeeded in that the meetings ended without much progress or decisionmaking. However, the fallout of the heavy police response was intense; many protesters won lawsuits due to the harsh treatment they faced.
In Pittsburgh, just as in Seattle, tear gas, pepper spray, and "less lethal munitions" like rubber bullets have been and may be deployed against protesters. Yesterday, the police told a breakaway group of protesters that they were engaged in unlawful assembly as they tried to approach the convention center where the G20 is meeting. The First Amendment doesn't say much about what sort of assembly is lawful or unlawful, merely that people have the right to assemble.
But restrictions on the right to assemble have been upheld, with various justifications. Seattle's parade permit regulations were recently overturned in court, but new regulations were put in place that continue to restrict assembly, but in an ostensibly more constitutional manner. It's been argued that the diversity of interests represented in urban areas necessitates placing these restrictions on those seeking to assemble and protest; I'm not convinced.
You can see where I come down on this issue by now. I'm sure I'll have more to say on this issue in the future. I'd like to cover the implications of G20 economic decisions on urban areas in a future article.
For more information on the G20:
For more information on urban policy about protests:
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