San Francisco Blog

Imagine that, as Dr. Martin Luther King marched on Selma in non-violent civil dis-obedience, the authorities were able to move Selma two miles away and, hours later, put Selma onto a plane bound for Argentina.

The Civil Rights Act might never have been passed. The News-ticker that day would have read: Selma march route changed: Mayor sites public safety concerns.

On April 9th 2008 at the Olympic Torch relay in San Francesco, Selma was moved for me and my wife, who is a Tibetan-American and that threatens all our civil rights.

The right to protest includes the right to protest in reasonable proximity to the target of the protest, normally within sight and sound. So, for example if I wanted to protest city hall, a permit to protest two miles away would violate my rights.

By moving the route of the Olympic torch and the closing ceremonies miles from the publicly published route, the right to protest was denied to my wife and I and all those others who, in good faith, peacefully assembled where they had obtained lawful permits to protest.

Mayor Gavin Newsom announced that the "dignity" of the ceremony was preserved, and police Chief Fong asserted that the right to Free Speech was preserved. They are mistaken.

The public reasons given for moving the route were:

1) Pro-Tibetan groups had conducted unlawful activates at the torch relays in London and Paris and San Francisco wanted to avoid the same.

My answer: unlawful conduct by foreign nationals in other countries is not sufficient justification to deprive me of my rights as an American Citizen

2) A group of pro-Tibetan protestors unlawfully spray painted a bus and broke several of its windows.

My answer: Any lawbreakers should have been immediately arrested by the hundreds of troopers on duty along the route. If they failed to do so -- they did not do their duty.

Only five people were arrested that day out of a crowd of tens of thousands. More crime occurs on a normal Friday night in downtown San Francisco than this.

3) Police Chief Heather Fong stated that certain groups dis-obeyed the order to remain behind the barriers and Fong predicted that had the relay route gone on as planned many people would have had to have been arrested.

My answer: Police Chief Fong is clearly unfamiliar with the writings of Mssrs Gandhi and Dr. King. Tolerance of Public, peaceful, Civil dis-obedience is what distinguishes our country from the Peoples Republic of China for example.

4) It was a last minute decision only made mid-day.

My Answer: It is public record that the Mayor had been attempting to keep the route secret and was only forced to release it by ACLU pressure. Days before the event his office announced that they were reserving the right to change the route and many individuals, including me, contacted his office to protest this plan.

Therefore while it is conceivable (though very unlikely) that the exact route was decided on April 9th around 1Pm as the Mayor claims, the general plan to move the route away from the protestors was made clear well before by the Mayor himself.

If the route was really changed to avoid a group of unruly protesters - why move the entire route two miles away, thereby neutering the tens of thousands of lawful protestors along original route?

Suspicious minds might conclude that Mayor Newsom was pandering to the very numerous and well financed pro-China lobby in his determination to run the relay at any cost. Mayor Newsom sophomorically treated the Torch relay like a football with the object of avoiding his pesky fellow citizens who were protesting. This provided only a shallow victory only for the propaganda department of the Government of China whose headline read: San Francisco Torch Relay Completed with No Major Problems.

I understand that even the Olympic Athletes are being forced to sign a gag order, in effect, giving up their right to free speech while in China.

Instead of the US lifting China into Free Speech and Democracy, San Francisco, my home town, was dragged down to their dark and sneaky level, and violating my right to protest was the path they took on April 9th.

Imagine a parade honoring Osama Bin Ladin in your home town. How about a parade for Adolf Hitler or Jeffrey Dahmer? Would you like to protest?

Oops…… the parade was moved across town at the last minute -- call CNN or Google Earth to find out where it went.

Joshua Kyle
3053 Fillmore #118
SF CA 94123
415 716-8876
Joshkyle@hotmail.com