Activists continue to press for longer, closer Democratic National Convention protest route in Chicago

With less than two weeks until the start of the Democratic National Convention, a coalition of activists, led by Palestinians in Chicago, are continuing to negotiate with local authorities over their protest route.

The Coalition to March on the DNC, who have sued the city of Chicago for a longer and closer protest route, were in federal court on Monday without any final ruling. They will be back in court in the coming days.

The main points of contention between the activists and the city of Chicago are length of the route for the approximately 50,000 people expected to march and the distance from the convention, which organisers say is important to get their voices heard to protest the administration's support of Israel's war in Gaza, which has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in the occupied territories.

"We've been saying from the beginning that we want a route that's within sight and sound of the DNC," Muhammad Sankari, a Chicago-based member of the United States Palestinian Community Network, told The New Arab. 

"The city is trying to give us a route that's just over a mile, which would have us turning through side streets and going through residential areas," he said. "We'll have tens of thousands of people on the streets. We should be given the main streets."

Emphasising the importance of having a longer route, he said, "By the time the front of the march gets to the end, the people at the end might not have started the circle, and they won't have had their constitutional right to speech and assembly. We have the right to take our demands to the door of the administration."

According to USPCN, more than 200 organisations across the US have joined the Coalition to March on the DNC. They say they are determined to march in Chicago on Monday 19 August, the first day of the convention, regardless of the final decision of the route and despite the new nomination of Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential candidate replacing Joe Biden.