Anarchist rampage renews free-speech debate
Associated Press
BERKELEY, Calif.
Hundreds of masked, black-clad anarchists who overwhelmed a peaceful California protest and assaulted at least five perceived political enemies have reignited the debate over ensuring free speech while protecting public safety in the city where the U.S. free-speech movement was born in the 1960s.
After planned weekend rallies were violently disrupted or canceled, supporters of President Donald Trump and other politically conservative activists complained their free-speech rights were blocked by liberal politicians who they say incited left-wing extremists.
When Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson canceled his San Francisco rally Saturday, he blamed San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and Democratic U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi for falsely labeling the organization as a hate group and inciting extremism to vow violent disruption.
Others said that the violence Sunday in nearby Berkeley, known as the U.S. heart of the free-speech movement, tarnished their peaceful opposition to Trump’s policies.
“It played into the false narrative that some conservatives have spun,” about violent left-wing stifling of free speech, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin said Monday, a day after the anarchists assaulted the people they thought were right-wing extremists.