Jewish protester charged over placard mocking terrorist leader

A Jewish protester was arrested by the Met Police after he briefly held a placard satirising a Hezbollah terrorist leader, The Telegraph can reveal.
The British man, who has asked to remain anonymous for his safety, was detained and charged last September over a cartoon which showed Hasan Nasrallah, the Lebanese terror chief, with a pager and the words 'beep, beep, beep'.
The placard satirised a targeted Israeli attack, dubbed Operation Grim Beeper, in which explosives in pagers and walkie-talkies killed 42 people, mostly Hezbollah terrorists. Nasrallah survived but was killed in an airstrike a week later.
During questioning, police repeatedly asked the man – who was part of a counter demonstration against a pro-Palestine march – if he believed the image would offend 'clearly pro-Hezbollah and anti-Israel' activists.
Hezbollah is a terror group which is proscribed in the UK.
The decision by police to allow pro-Palestine demonstrators to march through London since the October 7 massacre, including areas with high Jewish populations and near synagogues, has been highly contentious.
The man's case is the latest in a string of heavy-handed police responses to lawful expression.
Last year, The Telegraph reported how columnist Allison Pearson was questioned at home by two officers over an X post following pro-Palestinian protests.
The Telegraph also uncovered the case of Julian Foulkes, a retired special constable, who was wrongly cautioned by Kent Police for warning about the threat of anti-Semitism in Britain.
The latest case has prompted condemnation from senior MPs and peers on both sides of the House.
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said it was an example of 'two-tier policing in action'.
He told The Telegraph: 'In recent times, the police have failed to act when confronted with protesters calling for jihad and intifada in London. Yet this man was apparently arrested because he might have offended supporters of a banned terrorist organisation.
'This is two-tier policing in action. The law is rightly clear that supporting banned terrorist groups, inciting violence, inciting racial hatred or harassing people is illegal. Beyond that, free speech applies to everyone.
'The police sometimes turn a blind eye when applying the law might be difficult, yet over-police at other times. The law should be applied equally to all, robustly and without fear or favour. That is not what happened here.'
It comes just a day after Sir Nick Clegg also weighed in on the issue, telling an audience at the Charleston Literary Festival in Sussex that police had become 'too censorious' of online speech.
The man in the latest case held the placard for less than three minutes during a demonstration in Swiss Cottage, north-west London, on Sept 20.
The area, near the home of Tzipi Hotovely, the Israeli ambassador, has been targeted almost weekly by pro-Palestine activists since the October 7 massacre.
On September 20, a pro-Palestine demonstrator was filmed in the area shouting 'I love the 7th of October' and 'I like any organisation that starts with H'. He was arrested under terrorism legislation but was not charged.
The Jewish man was part of a counter-demonstration organised by multi-faith group Stop the Hate UK.
The counter-protester was arrested a week later when he returned to the same location for another demonstration on September 27.
Before detaining him overnight at Islington police station, officers searched his home in a failed attempt to find the placard, which the man had already explained was not his.
'Two police vans and six officers turned up at our house to search for 'offensive material', which was quite invasive. It was a horrible experience,' he said.
'They put me in the lounge and asked my partner to go with them around the house. They weren't very pleasant to her and even went through her knicker drawer. It was totally ridiculous.'
Following his arrest, in police interview footage obtained by The Telegraph, an officer can be seen repeatedly asking the counter-protester: 'Do you think that showing this image to persons protesting who are clearly pro-Hezbollah and anti-Israel that by doing so would stir up racial hatred further than it is already?'
Both the counter-protester and his lawyer, Carl Woolf, specialist criminal solicitor advocate at Woolf Law LLP, were 'completely shocked' at this question.
In the footage, Mr Woolf replied: 'Are you saying that there were pro-Hezbollah people there? Because it is a proscribed terrorist organisation.'
The officer answered 'I am aware of that,' but continued the line of questioning.
The counter-protester denied intending to incite racial hatred or insult or distress supporters of the proscribed Lebanese terror group, telling the investigating officer the sign was 'political satire'.
He was released at 6.30am and later charged under the Public Order Act for causing racially or religiously aggravated harassment, alarm or distress by words or writing.
On May 10 – eight months after the ordeal began – the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the case, saying there was insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction.
In an exclusive interview, the man described the ordeal as 'distressing' for him and his family.
'The Met Police are still completely out of their depth when it comes to policing the anti-Israel hate marches we've seen on our streets week in, week out since the October 7 attacks,' he said.
'It beggars belief that police could think that this placard may be offensive to supporters of Hezbollah.
'If there are Hezbollah supporters at these marches, then why weren't charges brought against them for terrorist offences, rather than me being charged for holding a sign that can only be construed as political satire?'
He added: 'I didn't realise how relieved I was until I heard I wasn't going to court.'
Officer misspoke, says Met
On Friday, with regards to the repeated references in the interview to the counter-protester having offended supporters of a proscribed terrorist organisation, the Met Police said the officer 'clearly misspoke when she described those in the protest as pro-Hezbollah instead of pro-Palestinian'.
A spokesman added that the man 'was charged following a careful consideration of the evidence' and that the force would attempt to learn lessons from the episode.
'We will reflect on the CPS decision not to proceed with the case, applying any learning to future investigations,' they said.
The case is likely to fuel criticism of police for failing to confront anti-Semitic hate and heighten concerns over the safety of British Jews.
It comes just two days after a gunman shot dead two Israeli embassy staff near Washington DC's Jewish museum. The suspect told police 'I did it for Gaza' and shouted 'free Palestine' as he handed himself in.
The attack prompted Scotland Yard to urge London's Jewish community to remain vigilant.
In an extraordinary move on Friday, Benjamin Netanyahu accused Sir Keir Starmer and other world leaders of siding with Hamas, claiming they were 'on the wrong side of humanity'.
In a televised statement addressing the shootings at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, Mr Netanyahu said that by condemning the war in Gaza, the leaders were supporting 'mass murderers, rapists, baby killers, and kidnappers'.
Amichai Chikli, the Israeli diaspora affairs minister, accused Sir Keir, French president Emmanuel Macron and Canadian prime minister Mark Carney of having 'emboldened the forces of terror through their failure to draw moral red lines'.
'This cowardice has a price – and that price is paid in Jewish blood,' he said.
On Friday, peers with expertise in countering political violence raised alarm at the Met's conduct and called for an investigation.
Lord Walney, the Government's former extremism tsar, told The Telegraph: 'We all understand the police have a difficult job preventing protests escalating into disorder but the idea that officers intervened on the side of supporters of a proscribed terrorist organisation is grotesque.'
The crossbench peer, whose advisory role was axed in February by Sir Keir after he called for some climate activists and pro-Palestine groups to be banned, said that the 'disturbing' incident should be investigated and that there should be 'a full apology from the Met if the protester's claims are upheld.'
He added: 'It's an implausible explanation from the police that this officer simply misspoke. She was reading from a list of pre-prepared questions. They should just own their mistake and use this opportunity to ensure lessons are learnt.'
Arrest 'beggars belief'
Non-affiliated peer Lord Austin, who was himself investigated by police for calling Hamas 'Islamists' on social media, told The Telegraph: 'It beggars belief that someone would be arrested, put in the cells and then charged for holding this sign because it might upset supporters of Islamist terrorists and a proscribed organisation, rather than take action against the terror supporters.
'There is clearly a systemic problem when it comes to dealing with the hate marches and instead of telling us they disagree with individual decisions, ministers need to get a grip and sort it out.'
A Met Police spokesman said: 'We take support for proscribed organisations very seriously. Since October 2023, we have made 28 arrests under the Terrorism Act for offences at protests including wearing clothing or displaying symbols that indicated support for such groups, including Hezbollah. This is in addition to the hundreds of arrests made for other offences.'
The pro-Palestine demonstrator filmed shouting 'I love the 7th of October' on September 20 was arrested by the Met under terrorism legislation. He was not charged, despite Scotland Yard twice submitting a file of evidence to the CPS, the second time after appealing against a decision not to pursue the case.
A Met spokesman told The Telegraph that discussions with the CPS regarding the case were continuing and 'we will ensure all available avenues to challenge the decision not to bring charges are pursued'.
After the CPS became aware of The Telegraph's imminent publication of the story, it issued a statement to say it was 'urgently reviewing' its decision-making in the case of the pro-Palestine protester.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Daily Mail​

28 minutes ago

• Daily Mail​

ANDREW NEIL: No future UK government has a hope of making things better if it can't reform our incompetent Left-wing, WFH civil service

Former Tory Cabinet minister-turned-magazine editor, Michael Gove, this week revealed that, as Education Secretary, he had to overrule civil servants who wanted to suppress newspaper revelations about in Rotherham. The local council requested the government join it in legal action to prevent The Times from publishing details of its ground-breaking investigation into the scandal. Some senior civil servants in his department advised Gove to join in this bid to muzzle the press.

The Independent

36 minutes ago

• The Independent

US evacuates 79 staff and family from embassy in Israel as more Americans ask how to leave

The U.S. evacuated 79 staff and families from the U.S. Embassy in Israel on Friday as the conflict between Israel and Iran intensifies and growing numbers of private American citizens seek information on how to leave Israel and Iran. An internal State Department memo says the military flight, the second known to have occurred this week, left Tel Aviv for Sofia, Bulgaria, where some or all of the passengers were to get a connecting charter flight to Washington. The document, which was obtained by The Associated Press, also said that more than 6,400 U.S. citizens in Israel had filled out an online form on Friday alone asking for information about when and if the U.S. government would organize evacuation flights. An additional 3,265 people, some of whom may also have competed the form, called an emergency number seeking assistance. The document estimated that between 300 and 500 people per day could need evacuation assistance should the U.S. decide to offer flights or ships to get Americans out, as the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has said is being considered. There are some 700,000 Americans in Israel, many of them dual nationals, according to estimates, although the exact number at any given time is unclear because U.S. citizens are not required to notify the embassy if they are there or when they might leave. Earlier Friday, before the memo was distributed, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters that more than 25,000 Americans had reached out for information on leaving Israel, the West Bank and Iran. She told reporters that those people had sought 'information and support' and were 'seeking guidance' on departing. She would not give a breakdown of where the queries had come from and would not comment on embassy evacuations. In Iran, the document said that at least 84 U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, or Green Card holders, had crossed into neighboring Azerbaijan by land since the conflict began and that an additional 774 had been granted permission to enter as of Friday. Nearly 200 American citizens and Green Card holders are awaiting permission to travel overland from Iran to neighboring Turkmenistan, it said.

Daily Mail​

39 minutes ago

• Daily Mail​

EXCLUSIVE Revealed: Kenneth Noye's new life. He brutally stabbed two men and stole £26m. Now as he swans around Kent with a much younger lover and plays doting grandfather, friends expose the dark truth

Life, of late, has been undeservedly kind to Kenneth Noye. Despite having a couple of killings under his belt, not to mention a ruthless hand in one of the most lucrative heists in British history, the gangster is a familiar sight on the streets of Sevenoaks, Kent. He is often seen pottering around his local supermarket, clutching an eco-friendly bag for life, nipping into the gym opposite his top-floor flat or simply whizzing around in his Mercedes 4x4. Noye, 78, has been spotted, too, playing the part of doting grandfather alongside other families during sports day at a nearby £30,000-a-year private school.