Charlottesville rally organizer gets approval for 'anniversary' event
The organizer of a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which left a woman dead last summer, has been granted permission to hold an “anniversary” event in Washington in August.
Jason Kessler, who was behind the “Unite the Right” rally in August 2017 where white nationalists held a torchlight rally, clashed with protesters and caused a political furore when Donald Trump blamed “both sides” for the violence, filed an application with the National Park Service (NPS) to hold a “white civil rights rally” outside the White House.
Kessler had received initial approval from the NPS to hold the rally on Saturday 11 August and Sunday 12 August, the Washington Post reported.
The weekend marks the anniversary of the Unite the the Right rally in Charlottesville, where Heather Heyer was killed when James Alex Fields Jr, a self-described Nazi, drove his car into a crowd of protesters.
In Kessler’s application for a 2018 rally permit he said the purpose of the event was: “Protesting civil rights abuse in Charlottesville, VA/white civil rights rally.”
He asked for permission to hold a rally at Lafayette Park, located in front of the White House, for 400 people.
In a section of the form asking if the applicant believed anyone might “seek to disrupt the activity”, Kessler wrote: “Members of antifa affiliated groups will try to disrupt.”
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