E-Mail This Article to a Friend Demonstration zone or protest pit? You decide. BY STEVEN STYCOS

WEDNESDAY, July 28, 2004 -- Joseph Peckham, a union business agent from Cranston, Rhode Island calls it "repulsive."

Daniel O'Connor, an anti-war protester from Norwood, echoing District Court Judge Douglas Woodlock, calls it "an interment camp."

Both men are describing the 250-feet-by-90-feet asphalt surfaced area underneath the elevated tracks of the MBTA's Green line on Canal Street that is the officially designated demonstration zone during the Democratic National Convention. The area, dubbed a "protest pit" by its detractors, is surrounded by Jersey barriers. Above the barriers is cyclone fencing. And draped over the top is heavy mesh netting. As an added touch, along the railing of the closed elevated track are coils of barbed wire. There are three tunnel like entrances. A stage the size of a small kitchen with a microphone is in one corner. Because subway structures are in the middle of the area, the stage faces one fenced wall a mere 20 feet away. Large areas of the protest zone have, in the lingo of Fenway Park, "obstructed views."

A visit to the demonstration zone evokes images of a Chilean soccer stadium after the overthrow of President Salvador Allende or perhaps of an imaginary batting cage under the George Washington Bridge. But clearly, of all the sights at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the "free speech zone," near the Fleet Center presents the starkest proof that the freedom of speech and assembly in America is not what it was before the December 1999 anti-globalization demonstrations in Seattle and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Required by federal law to allow protests within "sight and sound" of the Democratic National Convention, event planners constructed the small area beneath a shuttered subway entrance about a block south of the Fleet Center. Civil libertarians objected, but Monday the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit declined to issue an injunction to open up or move the area.

"We're boycotting it as a group because we find it insulting. Plus it's a death trap," comments Matt of Boston, a member of the BL(A)CK Tea Society who declines to give his last name.

Nevertheless, some groups have used the area. Monday afternoon, nine people wearing "God Hates Fags.com" T-shirts were on stage in front of an audience of about 50, half of whom were reporters or photographers. While some screamed biblical references into the microphone, others held signs with slogans that included "Boston=Sodom," "Kerry/Edwards, Fag Enablers," and "God Hates You." The crowd did not support the group's message, and O'Connor climbed on top of the Jersey barrier 20 feet in front of the stage, grabbed the cyclone fence with one hand, leaned forward, and extended his other arm to give the anti-gay group members the finger.

It appeared to be a situation ripe for violence, but the nearest police were chatting outside the fenced area far from the entrances.

Nothing happened, and Tuesday morning, O'Connor was on stage singing, "Someday, We'll be Together," accompanied by a CD on his boom box. Half a dozen people milled around. Signs supporting universal health care and opposing the USA Patriot Act hung from the cyclone fencing. Jes Richardson of Mill Valley, California stood in front of the stage promoting peace with a nine-and-a-half foot high statue on wheels of Mahatma Gandhi.

"It's four days of the Democratic Convention and it's time to act out," O'Connor explained. He added that he hopes Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry will adopt the gentle Motown hit as a theme song and imprint it in the national consciousness because "it's resonant and peaceful."