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WASHINGTON -- May 20 -- The National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee, with lawyers from Southern Legal Counsel and the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Florida, filed a lawsuit on May 19, 2005 in the Southern District Federal Court in Florida, seeking to bar law enforcement from enforcing a sweeping security perimeter around the site of the Organization of American States (OAS) General Assembly in early June in Fort Lauderdale, as well as challenging a series of antiquated laws regulating the use of public property for expressive activities. The case also challenges an ordinance enacted last month by Fort Lauderdale, prohibiting protestors from carrying certain items in public, except if the group is part of a “bona-fide religious sect or organization” carrying out a “well-established religious rite or practice.” A similar law was enacted by the City of Miami prior to the November 2003 Free Trade Areas of the Americas (“FTAA”) ministers’ meeting there. Miami’s repealed the law in response to a lawsuit in early 2004. “Lawful protests have become a casualty of deliberate police misrepresentations. In Miami, New York, D.C. and elsewhere, the police have used lies and force to prevent and disrupt demonstrations, only to be discredited after the fact. The irony here is that the OAS agenda includes discussion of the state of democracy in our hemisphere and the advancement of democratic values. Let it be exercised in Fort Lauderdale,” said Robert Ross, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Florida Alliance For Retired Americans, the Broward Anti-War Coalition, the Broward County Green Party, the Green Party of Florida, Haiti Solidarity and Lake Worth for Global Justice. The Broward Anti-War Coalition, with the Alliance for Justice in the Americas, an umbrella organization of activist groups planning protest activities at the June OAS meeting, filed a permit application in early May to conduct a march and rally on June 5th. The City of Fort Lauderdale and Broward County are defendants in the lawsuit. The County operates the Broward County Convention Center and Port of the Everglades, where the OAS meetings will be held. Counsel on the case are Robert Ross, Mara Shlackman, and Carol Sobel for the National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee; Southern Legal Counsel, Inc. attorneys Andrea Costello (also with the National Lawyers Guild) and Alice Nelson; and American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Florida, Inc.attorneys Zeina Salam and Randall Marshall. The complaint and memorandum are available on the National Lawyers Guild website at www.nlg.org
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