On Friday, Nov. 17, Organizers of the “Rally for the Republic” told Citizens' Dawn that they are going ahead with plans for their Nov. 18 rally in the Boston Common despite having been denied a permit.

“This a public rally, not a private rally,” Mark Sahady of Resist Marxism said expressing his dissatisfaction with the permit conditions offered by the City of Boston which included the police restricting access to the event. “We feel that being allowed to have signs and flag poles is part of our expression.”

Going into the event the group is facing a protest called “Fight Supremacy 2.0” being organized by the groups Black Lives Matter and Violence in Boston; who, despite statements from Resist Marxism pointing to the contrary, say the rally is a “terrorist” rally for “hate” and white supremacy.

As was documented in Citizens' Dawn in a Nov. 16 report, some planing to attend the rally were entertaining ways they could portray the group as racist and carry out acts of violence.

The Boston Police have a tough job as they try to balance maintaining peace and keeping everyone safe with not infringing upon the first amendment rights of the rally organizers.

“We want the public to be able to come in and we don't want the police to take everything away from us while they refuse to do anything about the counter protesters,” Sahady said. “We want to have a much larger event we have many more people coming this time.. and we don't want the police limiting the size of the event so they can bring vehicles up and evacuate us and you know if there is too many people they wont have enough vehicles.”

The organizers say they filed an injunction weeks ago after having been initially denied their permit by the city for the date and it wasn't until today, Nov. 17, that they were granted an emergency hearing before the judge to make their case for a normal permit.

“We want the permit to have the same as normal procedures,” Sahady said. “Normally I have been to Boston Common, I've seen many rallies there walking through some permitted some not, and never have I seen a rally where the police said that they can't have signs. They usually bring in sound amplification whether they have a permit or not and the public is allowed to come and just show up and hear the speakers and we want the same rights as all of the other groups.”

On Wednesday, Nov 15 Head of Security for the rally Ken McKay told Citizens' Dawn that they will be carrying on as they would had they been given the permit.

“If somebody's in there starting s*** we can remove them if it's our permitted event,” McKay said. “The Constitution and the Bill of Rights was created to protect you from government overreach. It protects you from the government. The government interjecting itself in this situation is contrary to the Constitution. If they want to try to keep the peace then they need to put a separation between us and them: the ones that are calling for blood, the ones that are trying to come after us, you create that separation then fine.”

When pressed about his ability to keep Nazis or any provocateurs from accessing the event without a permit, McKay cited two previous supreme court rulings that he says provide him with the legal precedent to carry on as if the organizers had been given a permit.

“Under title 5, chapter 33, section 2, technically we are the unorganized militia,” McKay said about his security team providing security at the event. “Because of the way the city did this, where they had 10 days administratively to approve or deny the permit, and they went 38 days before they ultimately denied it, which brought it way too close to the event to do anything about it, even to file an injunction in court it wouldn't even be heard by the time the event came. So, under I think it was either Shuttlesworth vs the City Birmingham, Alabama or Murdock vs. Pennsylvania, that since the city dragged their feet to the point where the case wouldn't be able to be heard in court prior to the event, we can engage in that right with impunity as if those ordinances didn't exist. This is Supreme Court constitutional case law. Other cities have done this in the past and it went to the supreme court.”

“Last time they did not officially give us a permit until two days before the event and then they forced all of the restrictions,” Sahady said. “My guess is the city is going to use the same plan book. They think it worked for them last time. They will skuttle our event by making it impossible for us to plan, then they will issue us a permit at the last minute to force us into this case that they're gonna build and then they'll control access in and out so we can't have people who support us come in; and then they'll strip away our flags and signs so we can't get our message out; and then they'll separate us from the crowd so no one can hear us; and then they'll evacuate us in vehicles just like last time, and we're not going to let that happen this time.”

McKay is a member of the Massachusetts chapter of Oath Keepers. According to their website, Oath Keepers is “a non-partisan association of current and formerly serving military, police, and first responders, who pledge to fulfill the oath all military and police take to 'defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.'"