Fenced protest area becomes campground - one that's guarded by cops and hard to find

The Rocky

Published August 27, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Photo by Tim Hussin /Rocky Mountain News

A protester who wouldn't give his name hangs on the fence early Tuesday in what's come to be deemed the "Freedom Cage" outside the Pepsi Center. The area was set aside for protesters to speak their minds during the DNC.

Photo by Tim Hussin /Rocky Mountain News

Members of Tent State University circle their sleeping bags in the protest zone. The city did not allow them to camp in the City of Cuernavaca Park.

Photo by Tim Hussin /Rocky Mountain News

Tent Staters Ryan Hartman, 29, of Boulder; Kelly Boehms, 22, of California; Jon Berger, 19, of Maryland; and Amanda Troeder, 25, of New Jersey, share an air mattress Tuesday night.

Photo by Tim Hussin /Rocky Mountain News

Jeffery Wood, of Oakland, Calif., gets dressed as people who slept overnight in the "Freedom Cage" rise with the sun Tuesday morning.

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The post-midnight calm in the Pepsi Center parking lot Tuesday was broken by a generator buzzing so loud it sounded like an airplane landing.

On a makeshift stage lit by the blinding glare of three stadium lights, Lena Diaz, 20, of Morrison, sang over the buzz, belting out an Italian aria. "I have sorrow for your sufferings," she sang.

Her song was meant to encourage the ragtag bunch of people she'd marched with through Lower Denver and up 16th Street, all the way to the city's designated "Free Speech Zone."

That's the sole spot designated for protesters to say their piece during the Democratic National Convention. Largely ignored by the demonstrators it was built for, it's fenced in on three sides, guarded by dozens of police officers and hard to find.

So Diaz's performance was heard only by 30 or so protesters and the police.

As the last notes of her song died out, she was applauded by the campers busy inflating air mattresses and setting up their makeshift tent city.

"I am here because I really respect everyone's motives," said Diaz, calling the scene in the parking lot "surreal."

"I'm just really glad the police are on the other side of the fence," she said.

On their side, the protesters were bound together by one passion - the thought that free speech is worth fighting for.

Kim Mathews, 54, of Tucson, explained why she chose to sleep on the hard pavement rather than on a soft bed indoors.

"I really hate the idea of restricting protest with protest cages and protest zones," she said. "I heard that people were marching to the Freedom Cage. I think it's a very nice way to politically respond to something that's an ugly concept - fencing people in."

For people like Mathews and Diaz, camping out in the Freedom Cage wasn't about finding a free place to spend the night between protests and concerts. It wasn't about creating a sideshow during the circus of the convention.

For them, it was about fighting for the right to talk about what they believe in.

Even when many in Denver don't understand them, or when the fight means sleeping on concrete under bright lights and the watchful gaze of the law.

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