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OccupyMN To Build Longhouse On Gov. Plaza

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Occupy Minnesota plans to build a longhouse structure on Government Plaza Sunday afternoon, protest organizers said.

From 2 to 5 p.m. protesters plan to gather and learn how to build a longhouse, which is a large, single-room structure. Protesters plan to use the longhouse as a winter meeting place for its assembly and various committees. The longhouse is necessary for their participatory democracy, occupy organizers said.

But if Hennepin County authorities ask the protesters to stop building the longhouse, organizers said they would stop construction.

Protesters said the longhouse symbolizes their constitutional right to assemble peacefully – something that protesters feel Hennepin County infringed upon when it put in place new protest restrictions earlier this week.

The longhouse is also a throwback to the 1983 Minnesota Women's Camp for Peace and Justice in St. Paul, occupy organizers said. In that demonstration, which protested nuclear weapons, women slept all winter in an insulated structure on government property.

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