Protest permit

A protest permit or parade permit is permission granted by a governmental agency for a demonstration to be held in a particular venue at a particular time. Failing to obtain a permit may lead to charges of parading without a permit. The requirement of a permit is sometimes denounced as an infringement of free speech,[1] as permits are denied on spurious grounds or protestors are corralled into free speech zones. Permits are sometimes denied on grounds that the protest will create a security risk.[2] There seems to be evidence that the available venues for protests are shrinking in number; that citizens have experienced increasing difficulty in gaining unrestricted access to them; and that such venues are no longer where most people typically congregate in large numbers.[3] In Washington, DC, the National Park Service Police, U.S. Capitol Police, and Metropolitan Police of the District of Columbia have an elaborate permitting system.[4] Many famous people like Martin Luther King, Jr. have been arrested for protesting without a permit.


See also

References

  1. ↑ The Interaction of State Repression, Protest Form and Protest Sponsor Strength During the Transition from Communism in Minsk, Belarus, 1990-1995 6 (2), Mobilization: An International Quarterly, Fall 2001, pp. 129–150
  2. ↑ D Mitchell, LA Staeheli (2005), Permitting protest: parsing the fine geography of dissent in America, International Journal of Urban
  3. ↑ Places of Protest: The Public Forum in Principle and Practice 11 (2), Mobilization: An International Quarterly, June 2006, pp. 229–247
  4. ↑ Donatella Della Porta, Herbert Reiter, Policing protest: the control of mass demonstrations in Western democracies