Freedom Of Assembly

Like the winged mythological monsters they are named for--with a dubious power to spoil whatever they descend upon--the Harpys street gang has soured the lives of residents and merchants in a neighborhood near USC, city prosecutors say.

There were rock stars and rappers, and there were nurses to take blood donations. Music boomed off the sides of skyscrapers for blocks around. In between patriotism-tinged performances, earnest announcers climbed onto a stage in a square, under a sign that read "Saving Lives," and told hundreds of cheering youths about all the good things that would be done with the donated blood. Monday was Generation Day in Moscow, an event of vague origin, organized by networks of pro-Kremlin youth groups apparently to drown out another event.

Planners of an annual vigil in memory of women who died from illegal abortions before the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision have run into a snag. The North Orange County chapter of the National Organization for Women has held the vigil in the Orange Plaza on the anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark decision for the past two years, said chapter coordinator Barbara Jackson. Only a Parks Department use permit was required, she said.

Mayor James K. Hahn said Monday that he would pursue a far-reaching injunction to prevent street gang members from gathering and causing trouble throughout the city of Los Angeles -- though he offered few details of a proposal that would likely face both logistical and legal hurdles. Hahn's announcement came in the midst of his mayoral campaign against City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who lost to Hahn in the last mayoral runoff in 2001.

In its sharpest criticism of any Eastern European government since a wave of anti-Communist reform swept through the region, the Bush Administration on Thursday accused Romania's interim regime of imposing restrictions on freedom of assembly that go far beyond the needs of public order and safety. At the same time, however, President Bush praised Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev for his handling of ethnic strife in Azerbaijan.

In a move that could push protests largely out of the public eye, Russia's lower house of parliament gave preliminary approval Wednesday to a law that would ban demonstrations from a wide range of places, including areas close to highways, government buildings and diplomatic missions. The government has cited security concerns to justify the measure, and the bill's backers have presented it as an effort to ensure the constitutional right of citizens to hold assemblies, rallies and pickets.

A controversial court injunction may have reduced violent crime in the San Fernando Valley's Blythe Street neighborhood but contributed to its spread into nearby communities, according to a report released Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. Gang injunctions do not mitigate crime and therefore should be abandoned as a tactic, according to the 45-page report, "False Premise, False Promise: The Blythe Street Gang Injunction and Its Aftermath."

In what would be a precedent-setting ruling for Los Angeles, a Superior Court judge Wednesday signaled that he is likely to grant an injunction banning virtually all public gatherings by members of the notorious 18th Street gang, accused of terrorizing a neighborhood in the southwest area of the city.

China's government has stepped up pressure on a popular exercise and meditation group, warning members that they are banned from holding large gatherings that could upset social stability. The warning demonstrated the suspicion with which Communist Party leaders have viewed the Falun Gong group since thousands of its members surrounded the leadership's compound in Beijing in a silent protest April 25.

Neighbors of a San Fernando park said Tuesday they were dismayed to learn that the ACLU has filed suit to nullify a city ban on gang members using the park. "These people who filed the lawsuit should try living here for a while--then they'll get the picture," said Ruben, who lives about a block from the park. "It probably is denying gangbangers their rights and that's a shame," said Ruben, who like many park neighbors would not give his full name for fear of gang retribution.

In a move that could push protests largely out of the public eye, Russia's lower house of parliament gave preliminary approval Wednesday to a law that would ban demonstrations from a wide range of places, including areas close to highways, government buildings and diplomatic missions. The government has cited security concerns to justify the measure, and the bill's backers have presented it as an effort to ensure the constitutional right of citizens to hold assemblies, rallies and pickets.

Pershing Square became the stage Tuesday for a public dress rehearsal of the mass protests expected during the Democratic National Convention, and Margaret Prescod was stage manager. "Is the ribbon of oppression ready to go?" veteran activist Prescod asked from a lectern bristling with microphones. The ribbon--a long, narrow banner emblazoned with the words "Corporate Govt" and "Police State"--was cut using a pair of cardboard scissors bearing the logo "People Power."

The American Civil Liberties Union and several protest groups filed a lawsuit in federal court Friday challenging as unconstitutional Los Angeles' effort to contain and control demonstrations planned during the Democratic National Convention. The lawsuit contends that a designated protest zone located across a vast parking lot from Staples Center and outside a large security perimeter is too far from convention delegates.

A Superior Court judge has granted a permanent injunction that severely restricts the activities of two gangs accused of terrorizing and intimidating residents in a Harbor City neighborhood. The order, approved Monday by Judge James L. Wright, bars 24 reputed gang members from gathering in public with other members of their gangs. The named defendants also are banned from approaching, signaling or talking to people in any vehicle, except for police cars or public buses.

In a blow to New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, two federal judges ruled Thursday that a Ku Klux Klan group can hold a "white pride" rally in Manhattan this weekend wearing robes and masks. U.S. District Judges Harold Baer and Alvin Hellerstein said that the city could not withhold parade or sound permits from the Butler, Ind.-based Church of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan because the group planned to disguise their identities.

Miroslawa Glowacka, a nurse who is angry about hospital reforms, says she wouldn't bother to journey to Warsaw to join protests if her grievances could be solved by administrators in her central Polish city of Lodz. But the only way to win better working conditions--and improve patient care--is to get the national government to revise its health reform policies, she says.

The Chinese government has arrested nearly 1,200 government officials among the thousands of people it has rounded up for associating with a banned meditation group, a rights group reported Monday. The officials were being held in schools outside a northern Chinese city, forced to read Communist Party literature and pressured to give up their association with Falun Gong, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China reported from Hong Kong.

Luo Shao spent a year crying in the wilderness. In May 1998, the religion professor dashed off a letter to Chinese President Jiang Zemin warning of the rise of a mystical sect that he believed had the potential of becoming a dangerous cult. He sent the same message to the Communist Party Central Committee, advising members to watch out for the group, called Falun Gong. Its disciples, he cautioned, seemed highly organized and blindly devoted to their leader. He never received a reply.

In the early 1990s, China's National Defense Science and Technology Commission conducted a series of experiments to test people with reputed paranormal abilities. Among them was Zhang Baosheng, a Manchurian high school dropout who his disciples said was a 500-year-old extraterrestrial with two functioning brains. Also tested was Yan Xin, a master of the art of qigong, a millenniums-old type of meditative exercises.

The Chinese government's crackdown on a vast spiritual movement called Falun Gong is resonating sharply in Southern California, where Asian immigrants and others have increasingly embraced the mystical ideology. Many local followers say they are deeply troubled by reports that more than 5,000 fellow members have been rounded up in China since the sect's beliefs and practices were outlawed there last month.