The Orlando Visibility Project, Party for Socialism and Liberation, and 50501 Orlando Latinos organized an “emergency protest” hosted just outside of the Waterford Lakes shopping center at 5 p.m., Monday.
Joseph Wiedeman
Several local organizations held an “emergency protest” just outside the Waterford Lakes shopping center Monday to stand against the ongoing strikes in Iran.
The protest was organized by The Orlando Visibility Brigade, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and 50501 Orlando Latinos in response to the increasing hostilities taken by the U.S and its partners.
Caleb Pierre, a UCF alumnus and member of PSL, was one of the organizers for the protest. Pierre said he believed the escalations by the United States were something people needed to take a firmer stand on.
“We have to unite and say no to this war,” Pierre said. “What we’re doing to Iran, it’s a part of what the U.S. empire does, but we must always stand against it.”
The protest comes after recent joint strikes against Iran early Saturday morning, killing Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, after 36 years of consecutive reign.
The protest also follows news that as many as six U.S service members lost their lives, four after their planes were shot down in a friendly fire accident over Kuwait and two more from Iranian counterattack debris, according to a statement from Central Command.
The U.S jets themselves were shot down while taking part in the campaign against Iran and were apparently mistargeted by Kuwaiti air defenses, according to The New York Times. The other two soldiers were killed by initial Iranian attacks in the region, according to the two statements.
The protest was spaced out along North Alafaya Trail, with the majority of the group toward the entrance of the shopping center. There were two large bright yellow banners spread further down, closer to the road, with the first reading “Are We Great Yet?” and the other posing the question, “R We Safe Yet?”
Esther Powell, a German immigrant, held the first of the two banners. She said that she immigrated to the United States just after World War II with her father and grandmother, who had just survived the concentration camps set up throughout the country at the time. She said she never believed she would watch this happen again, but that if it did, she would do something about it.
“A lot of people think it will be forever, that our democracy is destroyed,” Powell said. “I want to tell them no, Germany could rise up again, we could too.”
Many protestors chanted along with the call-and-response leaders, waved their signs or simply raised their hands to the air.
Though there were no counterprotesters present at Monday’s event, several demonstrations in previous weeks have called on the administration to do something about the violence in Iran.
As previously reported by The Charge, students and community members held a memorial in January on campus to honor lives lost in the Iranian government’s response to protests in the country.
Numerous protests have also been held in downtown Orlando in recent months, calling for “regime change” and for the United States to help “free Iran,” as reported by many local news outlets. Dozens of Central Floridians gathered at City Hall on Sunday to celebrate the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran.
Despite near record-breaking low Florida temperatures, hundreds of people gather in downtown Orlando on Feb. 1 to protest the Iranian government’s violent crackdown against opposition in the country.
Kendal Asbury
Terri Falbo, a 68-year-old Orlando resident, followed her own beat just off the roadside and away from the rest of the group Monday while protesting U.S. involvement. Falbo said she has previously spoken out about students’ right to speak on Palestine. She said she has protested all her life, starting in the 1960s, and stopped because she truly thought that we were “getting better,” coming to this protest at the last minute.
“I just feel like we are all becoming so isolated,” Falbo said. “Maybe it’s just me, but that’s why I wanted to be out here. I don’t want to feel that way; nobody should.”
Candy Powell, daughter of Esther Powell and an Orlando native, routinely protests as an active member of Orlando’s Visibility Brigade and said she felt this recent round of strikes was more about unkept promises from the Trump Administration.
“He ran on this promise, of America First, no more foreign entanglements, and yet here he is entangling us in everything,” Candy Powell said. “This situation with Iran is so much more complicated than we could even fathom, and ultimately every accusation is an admission.”
Students hold memorial in honor of lives lost in Iranian January revolution