Pro-life Demonstration
Published 12:00 am Friday, March 25, 2011
Sara Storms of Wisconsin was among a group of traveling pro-life demonstrators who set up at the Highway 51 and 6 intersection in Batesville Wednesday morning. The group volunteered to move on because it did not have a city permit. The Panolian photo by Billy Davis
By Billy Davis
A traveling pro-life demonstration that set up Wednesday morning in Batesville moved on peaceably after organizers failed to produce an event permit from city government.
Batesville police, citing the lack of a permit, demanded that the organizers cease their demonstration.
About 30 demonstrators fanned out at the Highway 6 and 51 intersection, where adults and children stood behind gruesome, poster-size photos of purported aborted fetuses.
Batesville city government requires a permit for public assembly under Section 11-4 of its ordinances.
“I just told them, when they come to a city and do something like that, they need to go before city officials and get approved,” said BPD Detective Paul Shivers.
Organizers at first protested, citing their First Amendment right to free speech. A spokesman for the group suggested — without any first-hand knowledge — that a City of Batesville permit was not required for a demonstration, only for parades and similar events.
But the decades-old city ordinance also requires written permission from city government to stand on public property holding banners or signs.
Batesville City Hall sent a copy of the ordinance to The Panolian as demonstrators were debating with Shivers and other police officers in the Tsunami restaurant parking lot.
Some of the protestors said they had come from Wisconsin to Mississippi in anticipation of an anti-abortion initiative on the November statewide ballot.
The citizen-driven referendum seeks to identify an unborn fetus as a person — a bedrock conviction among the pro-life movement.
Near the Tsunami restaurant, one demonstrator held a sign publicizing the November vote, though most of the signs along the highways showed the abortion photos.
A brown van and red truck, both covered with similar abortion photos, circled through Batesville during the demonstration.
At least one demonstrator passed out pro-life literature to stopped motorists at the busy intersection.
Organizers told a reporter they had demonstrated at the University of Mississippi Tuesday and were driving west to Clarksdale later Wednesday morning.
