Hashim Nzinga

Hashim Nzinga, left, on June 23, 2015. Nzinga said members of his New Black Panther Party will carry guns this week during protests and demonstrations in Cleveland.

(AP Photo / Mic Smith)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The chairman of the New Black Panthers Party said members will carry guns this week during protests and demonstrations in the run-up to the Republican National Convention, according to a report from Reuters.

Hashim Nzinga said his members will carry guns in self-defense and to protect other protesters, the news agency reported.

"If it is an open state to carry, we will exercise our second amendment rights because there are other groups threatening to be there that are threatening to do harm to us," Nzinga told Reuters.

"If that state allows us to bear arms, the Panthers and the others who can legally bear arms will bear arms."

Attempts to reach Nzinga were not immediately successful.

It is legal for people to carry guns outside the convention as long as they're complying with the state's open carry law.

Nzinga told Reuters he expected "a couple hundred" members of the New Black Panther Party to join black unity rallies and protests Thursday through Sunday in Cleveland.

The group plans to provide security for a black unity event scheduled for Thursday.

"We are there to protect... (the black unity) event. We are not trying to do anything else," he told the news agency. "We are going to carry out some of these great legal rights we have -- to assemble, to protest and (to exercise) freedom of speech."

Reuters reported that Nzinga said the group plans to leave on Sunday, the day before the convention begins.