How a Three-Minute Placard Sparked an Eight-Month Legal Ordeal “two-tier policing in action”

[Social Media]

 

Satire on Trial: How a Three-Minute Placard Sparked an Eight-Month Legal Ordeal

 

A Jewish counter-protester who dared to mock Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah with a hand-drawn cartoon has finally been cleared, ending what he calls a “distressing” eight-month saga that exposed “two-tier policing in action”.

 

The Londoner, who has asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons, spent fewer than three minutes on 20 September holding a sign that pictured Nasrallah clutching a pager above the words “beep, beep, beep” – a nod to Israel’s 1997 “Operation Grim Beeper”, in which explosives hidden in communications devices killed dozens of Hezbollah fighters. He was standing in Swiss Cottage alongside a multi-faith group protesting a larger pro-Palestinian march.

 

 

Police did not arrest him that day, but when he returned to the same spot a week later two vans and six officers arrived. They searched his home – even, he says, rifling through his partner’s underwear drawer – then held him overnight at Islington police station and charged him under the Public Order Act with racially or religiously aggravated harassment. “It beggars belief that police could think this placard might offend supporters of Hezbollah,” he told The Telegraph. “If Hezbollah sympathisers were really present, why weren’t they facing terror charges instead of me?”

 

Interview footage shows an officer pressing him: “Do you think that showing this image to persons protesting who are clearly pro-Hezbollah and anti-Israel would stir up racial hatred further than it is already?” His lawyer, Carl Woolf, replied incredulously, “Are you saying there were pro-Hezbollah people there? It is a proscribed terrorist organisation.”

 

The incident fuelled accusations that the Metropolitan Police are harsher on pro-Israel speech than on overt support for extremist causes. Shadow home secretary Chris Philp called it “two-tier policing in action”, adding that officers “sometimes turn a blind eye when confronted with protesters calling for jihad, yet over-police at other times. The law should be applied equally to all – that is not what happened here.”

 

Peers echoed the criticism. Lord Walney, a former government extremism adviser, said intervening “on the side of supporters of a proscribed terrorist organisation is grotesque” and urged the Met to apologise if the man’s account is upheld. Lord Austin, previously investigated for labelling Hamas “Islamists” online, remarked, “It beggars belief that someone would be arrested and charged because a sign might upset supporters of Islamist terrorists, rather than action being taken against the terror supporters themselves.”

 

Confronted with the video, the Met later insisted the interviewing officer had “misspoke” by describing demonstrators as pro-Hezbollah when she meant pro-Palestinian, and promised to “reflect on the CPS decision” to drop the case. Prosecutors finally abandoned proceedings on 10 May, citing insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction. The counter-protester learned the news with relief: “I didn’t realise how relieved I was until I heard I wasn’t going to court.”

 

His ordeal comes amid wider concern about anti-Semitic hate and police tactics since Hamas’s 7 October attacks. The same September afternoon, a pro-Palestinian activist was filmed near the Israeli ambassador’s home shouting “I love the 7th of October.” He was arrested under terrorism legislation but never charged; Scotland Yard says it is still contesting that decision with the Crown Prosecution Service.

 

For the Jewish protester, the takeaway is grim: “The Met are still out of their depth policing the hate marches we’ve seen week in, week out. Political satire shouldn’t land you in a cell.” Yet, with the case closed, he hopes at least one lesson is clear: mocking a terrorist is not a crime in Britain.

 

  Adapted by ASEAN Now from The Telegraph  2025-05-26

 

 

[The Cyclist]

1 hour ago, JAG said:

In other news, how is the prosecution against that Labour Councillor who called for peoples throats to be cut going?

 

Exactly

 

Post hurty words on the internet, arrested, tried and jailed inside 2 weeks.

 

Call for peoples throats to be cut, live on Video, still walking about free.

 

The verbal contortions coming from some quarters will be a joy to read 😀😀

[Chomper Higgot]

1 hour ago, JAG said:

In other news, how is the prosecution against that Labour Councillor who called for peoples throats to be cut going?

I think that’s ’in another thread’.

 

 

[JonnyF]

This guy should consider himself lucky he wasn't arrested for being "openly Jewish".

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-68856360

 

Lineker could have attended the trial waving his rat emoji. 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6362097/2025/05/19/gary-lineker-bbc-motd-leaves/

 

Any news on when Ricky Jones is going to court to receive his suspended sentence for calling for throats to be slit (while right wing social media posters rot in jail)?