The students had become a target of selective and heavy-handed prosecution by the Orange County District Attorney's office after nonviolently interrupting Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren's speech at University of California, Irvine, in February 2010. The students underwent confidential administrative hearings conducted by the university, and the UCI Muslim Student Union was penalized with a one-quarter suspension and community service.
Each student has been sentenced to three years of informal probation, fined about $200, and has to do 56 hours of community service.
"It's a sad day for democracy when nonviolent protestors are criminalized by their government and are found guilty for exercising a constitutional right," said Salam Al-Marayati, Muslim Public Affairs Council President. "You can heckle the President, you can heckle high ranking government officials, but if you heckle an Israeli diplomat you will be prosecuted. These are Americans exercising their freedoms. This is a democracy not a dictatorship."
Each student has been sentenced to three years of informal probation, fined about $200, and has to do 56 hours of community service.
"It's a sad day for democracy when nonviolent protestors are criminalized by their government and are found guilty for exercising a constitutional right," said Salam Al-Marayati, Muslim Public Affairs Council President. "You can heckle the President, you can heckle high ranking government officials, but if you heckle an Israeli diplomat you will be prosecuted. These are Americans exercising their freedoms. This is a democracy not a dictatorship."
"Justice was jaundiced in case of UCI-11 students and America must worry for its democratic future," said Shakeel Syed, Executive Director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California.
"When history books are written, the 'Irvine 11' will stand alongside other great American civil rights heroes like Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X," said Hussam Ayloush, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations - Greater Los Angeles Area. "They peacefully and courageously stood up against injustice, and they defended our collective freedom of speech. No topic should be off limits and no public official or country should be above criticism. They are true American heroes."
"It is with the deepest disappointment and sadness that we hear the jury's verdict on the Irvine 11," said Khaled Bahjri, President, Muslim American Society, Greater Los Angeles. "The jury decided that the 10 defendants are guilty on both accounts. This is a huge step backward for our American principles of freedom and justice."
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CAIR, the Muslim American Society, the Islamic Shura Council, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council, all off-shoots of the Muslim Brotherhood, all posing as moderate organizations, yet all subversive in that they work towards a common goal-the eventual imposition of Islamic rule in America. Perhaps, we will never know to what extent these groups pushed these students into fighting these charges. And look where it got them. Today, instead of criticizing our country and its justice system, they should be back crawling under their collective rock. They still don't get what freedom of speech really means in America. It's not just about your freedom of speech; it is also about the freedom of speech of those you disagree with. Today, CAIR et al are crying about the freedom of speech of the defendants. Yet, they did not recognize the freedom of speech of the Israeli ambassador and the right of the audience to hear his words.
And a word for Hussam Ayloush. How dare you compare the defendants to Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. As for Malcolm X, he only lost his right of free speech when he spoke out against Elijah Mohammed and the Nation of Islam. For that, he was murdered.
9 comments:
It depends on the definition of "heckling," but I'm not aware of any constitutional right to shout down and drown out another person's exercise of free speech. If there were no criminal sanction for doing that, nobody would have any free speech at all. Was it selective enforcement?
The three "tea party" goons who were interrupting President Obama in Iowa pressed the envelope, but they didn't drown out a speech and deny the president the ability to communicate to an audience. They merely interrupted him rudely as he began answering their own question. Then he was able to move on.
Jury got it right.
http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/students-318726-muslim-irvine.html
Prior to the lecture, the Muslim Student Union members signaled both their intention to disrupt and their contempt for the notion of civil dialogue and the exchange of ideas.
They asserted that, "Oren and his partners should only be granted a speakers platform in the International Criminal Court and should not be honored on our campus." At a meeting of the MSU's general assembly the goal of the protest was unambiguously declared to be "disrupt the whole event" with the aim to "shut [it] down with individual disruption."
In the words of UCI Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, "They shouted him (Ambassador Oren) down."
The conscious decision to disrupt and harass a guest speaker on a university campus, after repeated warnings, demanded a response from the university and the community that such conduct was simply not acceptable.
UC Irvine and the Orange County District Attorney deserve credit for the extra tutorial on the Constitution and the law that they gave to the Irvine 11.
I was surprised the LA Times came out with this....
Punishing the 'Irvine 11,' again
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-irvine-20110924,0,3702342.story
The so-called Irvine 11 attended a speech at the university by Ambassador Michael Oren and, in an orchestrated attempt to disrupt his address, stood up one by one to yell out their objections.
As each miscreant was escorted out of the room, another took up the verbal bombardment. Their defense — that they were exercising their own right to free speech — is out-and-out wrong. One's right to free speech, as the courts have long held, does not extend to attempts to erase the free-speech rights of others.
There were many valid ways the students could have expressed themselves, such as holding signs, challenging Oren during question-and-answer time or protesting outside the building during his speech.
"Hussam Ayloush, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations - Greater Los Angeles Area. "They peacefully and courageously stood up against injustice, and they defended our collective freedom of speech." Doesn't Ayloush realize the these 11 persons were fined and placed on probation because they denied freedom of speech to others?
Freedom of speech is not collective, it is individual. That seems to be the root of the mislocation in the CAIR response.
Gary's link to the LA Times story leads to a 404.
What grounds are there to base an appeal? Was there any impropriety in the prosecution or in the trial ever claimed? The factual matters are settled by the jury verdict. It seems to me all they have is the victimization card and that is so well-worn as to be worthless already. They, the Muslims, insist on bending the First Amendment to suit themselves.
These young men (up to 23 years old, not kids) carefully planned even with the help of counsel to shout down this speaker because he would no doubt say something favorable about Israel and that is cause enough for them to keep him from speaking.
They conspired with each other and planned it very well in advance and even got students from UC Riverside to participate. They went into a hostile environment knowing they were going to cause a disturbance. They stood up and disrupted the event, each one sequentially, even after they were warned they could be expelled from college and arrested. They saw what happened to those who went before them. They risked their college education and jail time just so this man could not speak! They have demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice themselves for the Cause. No doubt the higher ups will mark them for more ambitious assignments in the future. Write down their names! You will see one or more of them in serious trouble in the future. They have chosen their path. (Nice job, parents and counsellors)
In the meantime, we can't even get our kids to pick up their socks in their rooms. How do they get their young men to sacrafice their futures?
Typically, the first generation of immigrants remember how bad things were in the old country and they appreciate America and are good citizens. The second generation typically doesn't fit in as well as others in the society and they don't know about the alternative in the old country, so they are not as good citizens. But the Muslims seem to be supporting the anti-social behavior of the second generation.
They, the Muslims, it seems to me, just don't have the capacity to integrate as all other ethnic groups have here in America. This is generally speaking of course and not applicable to each and every Muslim. Nevertheless, on the whole, they cling to Sharia law which is antithetical to American culture and society.
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We're talking about ten defendants and the staff of an advocacy group Miggie. We are not talking about "The Muslims." Hasn't almost everybody here pointed out that CAIR does NOT represent "American Muslims"?
There has been talk about the university punishment being sufficient.
Has it ever been determined how the UC Irvine administration could discipline UC Riverside students?
UCI clearly cannot discipline UCR students. As to what if any discipline was given to UCR students, that is private information which the university cannot make public. If they disciplined the UCR MSA as an organization, that could be released. I have heard nothing about that.
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