BY JEFFREY JONES
ST. PAUL, Minnesota - Socialist campaign supporters in Minnesota have launched a protest campaign against an attempt to limit free speech in Minneapolis.

On August 31 supporters of Socialist Workers candidate for mayor of Minneapolis, Jennifer Benton, were ordered to shut down their campaign table at an intersection in the Uptown area of Minneapolis. Supporters were distributing campaign literature and selling the Militant. Books and pamphlets elaborating the Socialist Workers Party's positions on many questions were on the table.

Minneapolis police officer J. Seidl cited Doug Jenness, campaign supporter and Socialist Workers candidate for mayor of St. Paul, for selling the Militant without a street vendor's permit. Officer Seidl gave Jenness another citation for taping a flier to a lamppost. The police officer tore the socialist flier down, while leaving other fliers on the lamppost.

Seidl at the time was off duty, but in full uniform and working for the Uptown Association, Inc., an organization of merchants in the area. The penalty for each citation is a $700 fine.

Benton condemned the citations as "a flagrant violation of the First Amendment right to freedom of speech."

Socialist campaigners have been petitioning, distributing and selling literature at this and other intersections in Minneapolis for many years.

Four years ago, a petitioner for Socialist Workers candidates was given a citation at the same spot by the same police officer, also employed at that time by the Uptown Association, for allegedly obstructing sidewalk traffic. This was subsequently dismissed. The socialists have never been told that they could not sell their newspaper at this intersection.

Socialist campaigners quickly responded to the attack by distributing a leaflet in Uptown and elsewhere explaining the facts and calling for messages of protest to be sent to the mayor, Sharon Sayles-Belton.

A press release resulted in a September 3 article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Jenness is quoted as urging Sayles- Belton "to use the power of her office to get the citations dismissed." He said necessary legal options are being considered.

Jeffrey Jones is a member of the International Association of Machinists and the Socialist Workers candidate for St. Paul school board.  
 
 
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