Exclusion zone

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For the 30-kilometer area around Chernobyl, see Zone of alienation.

An exclusion zone is an area that protesters are legally prohibited from protesting in.

Exclusion zones often exist around seats of government and abortion clinics. As a result of protests by the Westboro Baptist Church at the funerals of soldiers killed in the Iraq War, 29 states and the US Congress created exclusion zones around soldiers' funerals.^[1] In 2005, the Parliament of the United Kingdom created a one kilometre exclusion zone around itself^[2]

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states that "Congress shall make no law... abridging... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The existence of exclusion zones is based on court rulings that allow the government to regulate the time, place, and manner of protests.

An exclusion zone is related to a free speech zone. Protesters are required to picket in a free speech zone, thus rendering the area around the free speech zone to be an exclusion zone.