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Is Miami Beach's protest crackdown really 'nonpartisan'? Records show Israel views played role

Aaron Leibowitz, Miami Herald on

Published in News & Features

In addition to calling for limits on protests, the measure that passed in March directs police to inform the city’s elected officials of all protests planned in Miami Beach within one hour of learning a protest is scheduled.

“Clearly, we are respectful of free speech,” Meiner said at the March meeting. “Right now, we’re in a situation where our laws are not being enforced.”

The city has yet to establish specific protest regulations in response to the resolution. A new ordinance would need to come before the City Commission for approval.

On the agenda at last week’s City Commission meeting, Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez proposed an item to rescind Meiner’s resolution and pass a new one “acknowledging the role of peaceful protests in a democratic society” and noting that police can only impose restrictions that are “viewpoint and content neutral and otherwise constitutionally permissible.”

Meiner pulled the item from the consent agenda, preventing it from passing without discussion, but did not call it for a vote during the meeting.

Rosen Gonzalez told the Herald that the city should protect people’s right to speak and criticized Meiner for cutting off pro-Palestinian speakers at recent City Commission meetings.

 

“What I don’t like is the way Mayor Meiner treats residents who come to speak at our meetings when he screams, snarls and cuts off their mic. That is undignified and we are better than that,” Rosen Gonzalez said in a text message. “Everyone has the right to say what they want, even if we disagree, because we live in the United States of America and we protect our constitutional rights.”

Meiner hasn’t hidden the fact that his concerns about pro-Palestinian protests in the city influenced his resolution.

At the March meeting, he showed video clips of demonstrators protesting a February speech by lawyer Alan Dershowitz at Temple Emanu-El in Miami Beach and chanting on a nearby sidewalk as elderly congregants walked through the crowd. There were no reports of protesters causing physical harm to synagogue members, but Meiner said congregants were “intimidated.”

“As mayor, I will not tolerate our residents being harassed and accosted and threatened for simply trying to pray,” Meiner said, adding that constituents had asked him: “Mayor, how could you let this happen?”

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