Update: UC Irvine Muslim Students Found Guilty Of Disrupting Israeli Diplomat’s Speech
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A jury on Friday convicted 10 Muslim students of disrupting a talk by the Israeli ambassador on a university campus in a case that has stoked an intense debate about free speech.
The jury also convicted the students of conspiring to disrupt Ambassador Michael Oren’s speech in February 2010 at the University of California, Irvine. They were charged with misdemeanor counts after standing up, one by one, and shouting prepared statements such as “propagating murder is not an expression of free speech.”
range County Superior Court Judge Peter J. Wilson sentenced the defendants to 56 hours of community service and three years of informal probation. The judge found that the incident did not merit jail time and he added that the probation period would be reduced to one year if the community service is completed by the end of January 2012. Minimal court fines and fees were also assessed against the 10.
About 150 people, including relatives and supporters of the students and Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas, attended the verdict. Some community members gasped and started crying when the verdict was read and about a dozen walked out.
The students showed little reaction but later huddled with their attorneys and shared hugs with family and friends.
Shakeel Syed of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California said he was shocked.
“This is yet another reaffirmation that Islamophobia is intensely and extensively alive and thriving in Orange County,” he said. “I believe this will be used as precedent now to suppress speech and dissent throughout the country. This is the beginning of the death of democracy.”
A coalition of Muslim and Christian community leaders denounced the verdict and vowed to stand by the students. They praised the students’ courage for standing up to Oren and protesting the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza in the tradition of American civil rights leaders.
“This attack against Muslim students and the Muslim community is an attack on democracy. It’s an attack on all of us,” Father Wilfredo Benitez, rector of St. Anselm of Canterbury Episcopal Church in Garden Grove. “It’s an attack on all of us. It’s an attack on all those people who believe in the U.S. Constitution and freedom of speech.”
UC Irvine said in a statement that it supports free speech.
“We nurture a campus climate that promotes robust debate and welcomes different points of view,” said Rex Bossert, a university spokesman.
The verdict was praised by the sponsor of Oren’s speech, the Rose Project of Jewish Federation & Family Services, Orange County.
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