Tampa rallies against repressive legislation
Tampa FL – On Saturday April 10, a crowd of 40 people gathered at Curtis Hixon Park to fight back against the Florida anti-protest bill (HB1/SB484). The bill bypassed one state senate sub-committee hearing and it passed the Appropriations Committee on Friday.
“What HB1 makes clear is that police are not protectors of the community but are, in fact, our enemies. They saw millions rise up against police brutality. They saw African Americans, who have endured years of oppression at the hands of the police and the prison industrial complex, push back against this oppression through organizing and they got scared. The police got so scared that they wrote this bill to stop the power of the people,” said Eithne Silva, a member of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.
The bill is scheduled to go through another senate committee hearing on April 14.
“If this bill passes we need to stay in the streets and keep protesting. They want us to be afraid to speak out. We can't let that happen. We can't back down, we can't sit down and let Ron DeSantis and Florida Republicans win,” said Bill Aiman, a member of the Tampa Bay Community Action Committee.