Philly protest demands: Free Palestine! Free Puerto Rico!

By Workers World Philadelphia bureau posted on February 22, 2024

March in Philadelphia, Feb. 17, 2023
WW PHOTO: Joe Piette

Hundreds marched in a show of solidarity between Puerto Rican and Palestinian activists in Philadelphia Feb. 17. In a mile-long march from Norris Square Park to the intersection of Front and Allegheny in the Kensington section of the city where many Puerto Ricans live, participants carried signs and banners and chanted in English, Spanish and Arabic in support of a free Palestine and a free Puerto Rico.

Both nations live under forms of imperialist occupation that denies them their self-determination and freedom. Like Palestinians who have been forced to leave their homeland by Israeli settlers, hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans have been forced to leave their island nation, pushed out by the policies of the unelected fiscal control board named La Junta which, through tax breaks, which incentivizes U.S. corporations and privileged non-residents to move to Puerto Rico.

Occupation is a crime, from Puerto Rico to Palestine!