US students face jail time for disrupting Israeli official's speech

Electronic Intifada - Eleven University of California students face criminal charges and possible jail terms for protesting and disrupting a speech by an Israeli official as the Orange County district attorney's office engages in what one of the students' attorneys calls "selective and discriminatory prosecution"

In a University of California at Irvine auditorium on 8 February 2010, ten student activists nonviolently confronted Michael Oren, Israeli Ambassador to the United States, with prepared statements of protest. They stood up and challenged Oren's defense of Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip in winter 2008-09 -- during which more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed -- and the state's ongoing human rights violations.

"Propagating murder is not an expression of free speech," shouted one student before he was escorted out of the room. "You, sir, are an accomplice to genocide," another stood up and stated before he, too, was led away by police.

After each one made a statement during Oren's speech, the ten students were escorted out of the auditorium by police officers and then frisked, arrested and detained. Audience members in support of Oren jeered and yelled epithets at the protesting students as they delivered their messages.

Following the disruptions, Oren was able to continue his speech for approximately thirty minutes, while solidarity activists outside of the hall gathered in a peaceful demonstration. Another student who was part of the protest, but who did not stand and speak out inside the auditorium, was also detained and arrested by a police officer.

Now known as the Irvine 11, eight of the students arrested that day are from University of California at Irvine (UCI) and three are from the nearby University of California at Riverside.

In September 2010, after a lengthy process, the entire Muslim Student Union at UCI -- of which many of the students arrested that day were members -- was suspended by university officials for an academic quarter. This punishment is usually reserved for campus groups that are involved with alcohol violations or "hazing," a series of physically abusive fraternity initiation practices.

Although the suspension has now ended, the Muslim Student Union was placed on a two-year probation, which means that the organization remains under acute scrutiny by the university administration.

But the punishment of the students' protest has gone beyond the campus.

Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas has initiated nearly a year's worth of investigations against the students, including subpoenaing emails and going door-to-door to get testimonials from witnesses after Oren's speech was disrupted.

Rackauckas recently empaneled a grand jury, and on 4 February, the district attorney's office decided it would file misdemeanor criminal charges against the students who disrupted Oren's speech. Rackauckas charged every student arrested that day with one count of both conspiracy to disturb a meeting and the disturbance of a meeting.

If the students are convicted, each could face up to six months in jail.

Similar public disruptions of speeches given by Israeli officials have taken place across the United States and in Europe, on college campuses and in public venues, notably in Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco and recently in Scotland. No known legal action has been taken against protesters in these cases....
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