The ANSWER coalition has been informed by credentialed media, including a major national TV news network, that have just been told by the Secret Service that they will not be allowed access to the Navy Memorial on January 20th to cover the major protest taking place there along Trump’s Inaugural Parade Route.
This is an outrage, a blatant act of political discrimination, and a grave threat to free speech and the right to dissent in the Trump Era.
This is an unprecedented restriction of media coverage at the inaugural parade. Media has always been able to go to the Navy Memorial in the past and now, just a few days before thousands of protesters are expected to gather there for a peaceful protest, news teams and cameras are suddenly told they will be banned from entering.
On Inauguration Day, the Navy Memorial will be the largest single demonstration location showing direct opposition to Donald Trump. The media wants to cover this protest that will reflect the powerful grassroots opposition to Trump’s extremist right-wing agenda.
We fought for a permit for people to assemble directly abutting the parade route, and now those in charge of Trump's Inaugural Parade are trying to sanitize the image of the parade by trying to close the protest to media. We won't let them.
No doubt Trump's Presidential Inaugural Committee wants to be sure that the cameras are only focused on the parade and not on the thousands of people expressing opposition to the incoming administration and who are planning to be at the Navy Memorial.
Reporters have informed us that they were told they could not go into the Navy Memorial area and record footage or even interview people along the route there as part of their news coverage. They are credentialed media, and credentialed for access inside the checkpoints, but have been told, that they may only cover the parade in specific spots. Those spots exclude covering the protest at the Navy Memorial — the one permitted protest on the Inaugural Parade that will take place.
Our attorneys at the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund are intervening on our behalf with the government. They are insisting that the government clarify, in no uncertain terms, that freedom of the press will be respected along Trump’s parade route and that the Secret Service directive be rescinded.
Time is of the essence. Trump intends to whitewash the mass protests taking place against his administration, but we can’t let that happen. Share this alert far and wide on Facebook and Twitter.
Help ensure that Trump's Presidential Inaugural Committee can't stage-manage the inaugural parade route — please make an urgent donation to support the organizing efforts to protest at Trump’s Inauguration. We have spent $20,000 on a 28-foot stage, a large sound system and set-up, and have been saddled with one legal obstacle and logistical restriction after another from the government, which we have worked hard to overcome. Now thousands of people can assemble right on the Parade Route. But we can’t succeed at this next step without the help of people like you, who understand what is at stake.
We must raise many thousands of dollars to defray the enormous costs for this historic mobilization that will “inaugurate the resistance” to Trump's extremist political program.
We will not be silent. We will not be made invisible. Working together, we will win.