Hussain writes: "Upset about the screening of a film they viewed as
propaganda for a foreign military, the students were also protesting the
presence of several IDF representatives who here holding a panel discussion
at the screening. That student protest has since become the subject of an
intense controversy. The school's chapter of Students for Justice in
Palestine is now facing the possibility of being banned from the campus."
Pro-Palestinian activists. (photo: AP)
California Students Face Criminal Charges for Protesting Film Glorifying
Israel's Military
By Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept
23 June 16
Last month, a group of students at University of California at Irvine
gathered to protest a screening of the film "Beneath the Helmet," a
documentary about the lives of recruits in the Israeli Defense Forces. Upset
about the screening of a film they viewed as propaganda for a foreign
military, the students were also protesting the presence of several IDF
representatives who here holding a panel discussion at the screening.
That student protest has since become the subject of an intense controversy.
The school's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine is now facing the
possibility of being banned from the campus. In addition, a legal
representative for some of the students involved in the protest, Tarek
Shawky, told The Intercept that the students were informed by the university
that their cases have been referred to the district attorney for criminal
investigation.
The day after the event, the school's chancellor released a statement
accusing student protestors of "crossing the line of civility." In his
statement, posted on the school website, Chancellor Howard Gillman said that
"while this university will protect freedom of speech, that right is not
absolute," adding that the school would examine possible legal and
administrative charges against the protestors. News reports cited claims
that attendees at the film had been intimidated and blocked from exiting the
event.
The protestors at the event represented a wide range of student groups,
including Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the
Black Student Union. Students who spoke with The Intercept denied that
anyone had intimidated attendees at the event or blocked access. "We held
our protest in a way that reflected university guidelines, we didn't use
amplified sound and we didn't restrict anyone's freedom of access to the
event," says Daniel Carnie, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace who took part
in the protest.
Contacted for comment, a media relations representative at UC Irvine said
that it was normal practice for cases like this to be referred to the
District Attorney. "It is routine for UC Irvine Police Department, when
called upon to investigate an incident on campus, to forward the
investigation to the District Attorney's office," said Cathy Lawhon. "It's
then up to the DA's office to determine if any charges are warranted."
Lawhon added that the school investigation into banning Students for Justice
in Palestine was proceeding separately.
Reached for comment, the Orange County District Attorney stated that they
have yet to receive a referral on the case from the school.
The incident is only the latest in which officials at UC Irvine and other
major universities around the country have taken harsh measures against
pro-Palestinian activists. "There is a really ugly history of targeting
student groups advocating for Palestinian issues," says Liz Jackson, a staff
attorney with Palestine Legal, a group which provides legal advice and
advocacy to individuals in the U.S. advocating for Palestinian rights. "It
suppresses the really important debates about U.S. foreign policy that young
people need to be having. Instead of being able to engage freely and voice
opinions that challenge the status quo, one side of the debate is just being
crushed."
A report issued last year by Palestine Legal and the Center for
Constitutional Rights documented 152 incidents of free-speech suppression on
U.S. campuses in 2014. These incidents have included acts of censorship,
threats of legal action and even accusations of support for terrorism.
Citing the threat posed to the First Amendment by such acts, the report
added that they were "undermin[ing] the traditional role of universities in
promoting the free expression of unpopular ideas and encouraging challenges
to the orthodoxies prevalent in official political discourse."
Threats, punishment and intimidation are all being routinely used to stifle
dissenting viewpoints on Israel-Palestine, says Omar Shakir a fellow at the
Center for Constitutional Rights and a co-author of the report. "University
officials are erecting bureaucratic actions to make it harder to hold
certain events, imposing administrative sanctions and even firing and
denying tenure to professors for their views on Israel-Palestine, efforts
that collectively represent a grave threat to the First Amendment."
For instance, Native American Studies Professor Steven Salaita lost his
tenured faculty position at the University of Illinois in 2014 after being
accused of incivility in his online comments on Israel-Palestine. After a
public legal battle, last year the school settled a lawsuit filed by Salaita
for financial compensation.
In the case of UC Irvine, Shakir adds that the university's charge of
"incivility" on the part of protestors is a particularly egregious attempt
to stifle protected speech. "Accusations of incivility have always been used
by those in power to justify attempts to suppress changes to the status
quo," Shakir says. "The term itself, 'civility' represents coded language
that in the past has been used to try and suppress groups deemed
'uncivilized,' like Native-Americans and African-Americans in the United
States. It has no place being used as a basis to silence student activists
today."
Those views were partly echoed by Ari Cohn, a lawyer with the Foundation for
Individual Rights in Education, a campus free-speech organization. "If
allegations that protestors at UC Irvine disrupted the event are
substantiated that would not be protected speech, as it would impinge on the
speech of others attending the event." Cohn added, however, that "civility
in itself cannot be mandated by schools. Incivility plays a fundamental role
in much of the social activism on campuses."
Threats to speech, have come not only from university administrations but
from law enforcement as well. In 2010, Osama Shabaik was among a group of
eleven students at UC Irvine who were arrested after protesting an
appearance by then-Israeli ambassador Michael Oren at the school. Oren's
speaking event came roughly a year after Operation Cast Lead, a three-week
Israeli military campaign against the Gaza Strip that killed hundreds of
civilians. Intent on making a point about the inappropriate nature of Oren's
appearance following the attack, Shabaik and others organized a protest to
disrupt the event.
In an incident that was captured on video, Shabaik and several other
students repeatedly stood up in the crowd to interrupt Oren's speech,
chanting slogans against Israeli military abuses during Cast Lead. The
students were detained and ejected from the event, something Shabaik says
they had expected. But what came next was stunning. The school
administration referred the students to the police, filing misdemeanor
criminal charges against them for disrupting the event. The charges carried
a maximum of one year in prison for each of those who protested.
The following year the case went to court, where Shabaik and nine other
students were convicted and sentenced to three years probation.
"The administration was definitely sending a message and implicitly
threatening our futures by having us charged as criminals for protesting,"
reflects Shabaik today. "A lot of those who were charged were students
planning to go on to medical school or law school, and they were worried
that having a criminal record would prevent that from happening."
Shabaik has since gone on to graduate from Harvard Law School, but is
concerned about how his criminal record could affect his future employment
prospects. Looking back at the incident, he believes it helped inaugurate a
high-level campaign to silence dissent on Israel-Palestine in the United
States, that has since extended to state legislatures.
Earlier this month, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order
that would force public institutions in New York to divest funds from groups
supporting the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The
executive order has been criticized as a form of political blacklisting.
Shabaik believes Cuomo's proposal echoes his own experience, where powerful
institutions and public figures have sought to quash dissent on this issue.
"Its important to understand duality of responses when it comes to free
speech. The whole essence of free speech is to challenge power and push back
against government repression," says Shabaik. "The move to stop debate on
this issue is now leading to crackdowns at state-funded colleges and
universities and even at the state legislature level. People are facing
serious threats to their future for speaking out against the status quo."
In recent years, a movement has built, mostly on the political right, which
charges that free speech is being endangered on American college campuses.
The most prominent voices on this issue have been conservative activists
like Breitbart journalist Milo Yiannopoulos and Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro.
But liberal writers such as Jonathan Chait have also relentlessly fixated on
the idea that "political correctness" is stifling free expression among a
new generation of students.
Most of these protestations have focused on a specific type of speech: the
right to "offend" by speaking against perceived left-wing orthodoxies on
race, feminism and cultural issues. The charges of speech suppression in
such cases have generally not been leveled at university administrators or
law enforcement, but rather at students who view such speech as offensive.
This differs markedly from the Israel-Palestine controversies, where
state-funded bureaucracies and government officials have been involved with
stifling speech on an issue directly related to American foreign policy.
"Its important to distinguish between the idea that certain views are not
popular on campuses, something that may be worthy of discussion separately,
and the phenomenon of public institutions and officials taking direct action
to restrict speech about vital aspects of government policy," says Shakir of
the Center for Constitutional Rights. "The core of the First Amendment
defends the right to free speech on campuses, and we should all be concerned
when McCarthey-esque tactics are being used by those in positions of power
to silence debate on issues of global importance."
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Pro-Palestinian activists. (photo: AP)
https://theintercept.com/2016/06/23/students-in-california-might-face-crimin
al-investigation-for-protesting-film-on-israeli-army/https://theintercept.co
m/2016/06/23/students-in-california-might-face-criminal-investigation-for-pr
otesting-film-on-israeli-army/
California Students Face Criminal Charges for Protesting Film Glorifying
Israel's Military
By Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept
23 June 16
ast month, a group of students at University of California at Irvine
gathered to protest a screening of the film "Beneath the Helmet," a
documentary about the lives of recruits in the Israeli Defense Forces. Upset
about the screening of a film they viewed as propaganda for a foreign
military, the students were also protesting the presence of several IDF
representatives who here holding a panel discussion at the screening.
That student protest has since become the subject of an intense controversy.
The school's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine is now facing the
possibility of being banned from the campus. In addition, a legal
representative for some of the students involved in the protest, Tarek
Shawky, told The Intercept that the students were informed by the university
that their cases have been referred to the district attorney for criminal
investigation.
The day after the event, the school's chancellor released a statement
accusing student protestors of "crossing the line of civility." In his
statement, posted on the school website, Chancellor Howard Gillman said that
"while this university will protect freedom of speech, that right is not
absolute," adding that the school would examine possible legal and
administrative charges against the protestors. News reports cited claims
that attendees at the film had been intimidated and blocked from exiting the
event.
The protestors at the event represented a wide range of student groups,
including Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the
Black Student Union. Students who spoke with The Intercept denied that
anyone had intimidated attendees at the event or blocked access. "We held
our protest in a way that reflected university guidelines, we didn't use
amplified sound and we didn't restrict anyone's freedom of access to the
event," says Daniel Carnie, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace who took part
in the protest.
Contacted for comment, a media relations representative at UC Irvine said
that it was normal practice for cases like this to be referred to the
District Attorney. "It is routine for UC Irvine Police Department, when
called upon to investigate an incident on campus, to forward the
investigation to the District Attorney's office," said Cathy Lawhon. "It's
then up to the DA's office to determine if any charges are warranted."
Lawhon added that the school investigation into banning Students for Justice
in Palestine was proceeding separately.
Reached for comment, the Orange County District Attorney stated that they
have yet to receive a referral on the case from the school.
The incident is only the latest in which officials at UC Irvine and other
major universities around the country have taken harsh measures against
pro-Palestinian activists. "There is a really ugly history of targeting
student groups advocating for Palestinian issues," says Liz Jackson, a staff
attorney with Palestine Legal, a group which provides legal advice and
advocacy to individuals in the U.S. advocating for Palestinian rights. "It
suppresses the really important debates about U.S. foreign policy that young
people need to be having. Instead of being able to engage freely and voice
opinions that challenge the status quo, one side of the debate is just being
crushed."
A report issued last year by Palestine Legal and the Center for
Constitutional Rights documented 152 incidents of free-speech suppression on
U.S. campuses in 2014. These incidents have included acts of censorship,
threats of legal action and even accusations of support for terrorism.
Citing the threat posed to the First Amendment by such acts, the report
added that they were "undermin[ing] the traditional role of universities in
promoting the free expression of unpopular ideas and encouraging challenges
to the orthodoxies prevalent in official political discourse."
Threats, punishment and intimidation are all being routinely used to stifle
dissenting viewpoints on Israel-Palestine, says Omar Shakir a fellow at the
Center for Constitutional Rights and a co-author of the report. "University
officials are erecting bureaucratic actions to make it harder to hold
certain events, imposing administrative sanctions and even firing and
denying tenure to professors for their views on Israel-Palestine, efforts
that collectively represent a grave threat to the First Amendment."
For instance, Native American Studies Professor Steven Salaita lost his
tenured faculty position at the University of Illinois in 2014 after being
accused of incivility in his online comments on Israel-Palestine. After a
public legal battle, last year the school settled a lawsuit filed by Salaita
for financial compensation.
In the case of UC Irvine, Shakir adds that the university's charge of
"incivility" on the part of protestors is a particularly egregious attempt
to stifle protected speech. "Accusations of incivility have always been used
by those in power to justify attempts to suppress changes to the status
quo," Shakir says. "The term itself, 'civility' represents coded language
that in the past has been used to try and suppress groups deemed
'uncivilized,' like Native-Americans and African-Americans in the United
States. It has no place being used as a basis to silence student activists
today."
Those views were partly echoed by Ari Cohn, a lawyer with the Foundation for
Individual Rights in Education, a campus free-speech organization. "If
allegations that protestors at UC Irvine disrupted the event are
substantiated that would not be protected speech, as it would impinge on the
speech of others attending the event." Cohn added, however, that "civility
in itself cannot be mandated by schools. Incivility plays a fundamental role
in much of the social activism on campuses."
Threats to speech, have come not only from university administrations but
from law enforcement as well. In 2010, Osama Shabaik was among a group of
eleven students at UC Irvine who were arrested after protesting an
appearance by then-Israeli ambassador Michael Oren at the school. Oren's
speaking event came roughly a year after Operation Cast Lead, a three-week
Israeli military campaign against the Gaza Strip that killed hundreds of
civilians. Intent on making a point about the inappropriate nature of Oren's
appearance following the attack, Shabaik and others organized a protest to
disrupt the event.
In an incident that was captured on video, Shabaik and several other
students repeatedly stood up in the crowd to interrupt Oren's speech,
chanting slogans against Israeli military abuses during Cast Lead. The
students were detained and ejected from the event, something Shabaik says
they had expected. But what came next was stunning. The school
administration referred the students to the police, filing misdemeanor
criminal charges against them for disrupting the event. The charges carried
a maximum of one year in prison for each of those who protested.
The following year the case went to court, where Shabaik and nine other
students were convicted and sentenced to three years probation.
"The administration was definitely sending a message and implicitly
threatening our futures by having us charged as criminals for protesting,"
reflects Shabaik today. "A lot of those who were charged were students
planning to go on to medical school or law school, and they were worried
that having a criminal record would prevent that from happening."
Shabaik has since gone on to graduate from Harvard Law School, but is
concerned about how his criminal record could affect his future employment
prospects. Looking back at the incident, he believes it helped inaugurate a
high-level campaign to silence dissent on Israel-Palestine in the United
States, that has since extended to state legislatures.
Earlier this month, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order
that would force public institutions in New York to divest funds from groups
supporting the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The
executive order has been criticized as a form of political blacklisting.
Shabaik believes Cuomo's proposal echoes his own experience, where powerful
institutions and public figures have sought to quash dissent on this issue.
"Its important to understand duality of responses when it comes to free
speech. The whole essence of free speech is to challenge power and push back
against government repression," says Shabaik. "The move to stop debate on
this issue is now leading to crackdowns at state-funded colleges and
universities and even at the state legislature level. People are facing
serious threats to their future for speaking out against the status quo."
In recent years, a movement has built, mostly on the political right, which
charges that free speech is being endangered on American college campuses.
The most prominent voices on this issue have been conservative activists
like Breitbart journalist Milo Yiannopoulos and Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro.
But liberal writers such as Jonathan Chait have also relentlessly fixated on
the idea that "political correctness" is stifling free expression among a
new generation of students.
Most of these protestations have focused on a specific type of speech: the
right to "offend" by speaking against perceived left-wing orthodoxies on
race, feminism and cultural issues. The charges of speech suppression in
such cases have generally not been leveled at university administrators or
law enforcement, but rather at students who view such speech as offensive.
This differs markedly from the Israel-Palestine controversies, where
state-funded bureaucracies and government officials have been involved with
stifling speech on an issue directly related to American foreign policy.
"Its important to distinguish between the idea that certain views are not
popular on campuses, something that may be worthy of discussion separately,
and the phenomenon of public institutions and officials taking direct action
to restrict speech about vital aspects of government policy," says Shakir of
the Center for Constitutional Rights. "The core of the First Amendment
defends the right to free speech on campuses, and we should all be concerned
when McCarthey-esque tactics are being used by those in positions of power
to silence debate on issues of global importance."
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