Cab driver Henock Wogclerse invoked protests in Africa and the Middle East when telling the Prince George’s County Council that new legislation reducing the number of new cab permits amounts to “tyranny.”
More than 100 cab drivers parked their taxis outside the county administration building in Upper Marlboro and sat through Tuesday’s council meeting to protest the new legislation.
“We are very disappointed to be here to defend reforms that took years to obtain,” said Wogclerse, who lives in Clinton and is a leader of the Prince George’s County Taxi Workers Alliance.
The bill proposed by Councilman Will Campos, who represents Hyattsville, would reduce the number of new taxi permits that the council last year approved.
Wogclerse prefaced his remarks by referencing “what is happening in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and elsewhere in the world,” where people “are fighting and dying for justice, self-determination and economic opportunity.”
Referencing the new bill, Wogclerse said: “CB-3-2011 seeks to impose tyranny on our working, law-abiding citizens of the county.”
