Trial Starts in Oren Speech Case
by IPT News • Sep 8, 2011 at 6:21 pm
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3151/trial-starts-in-oren-speech-case
Ten students from the University of California, Irvine and Riverside went on trial this week on misdemeanor charges that they orchestrated a systematic disruption of Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren's February 2010 speech at the Irvine campus.
In opening statements, Orange County Deputy District Attorney Dan Wagner rejected free speech arguments offered by the defense. "They didn't want to have an exchange of ideas to see who was telling the truth and who was not," Wagner said. "What their intention was, make no mistake, was to shut him down."
He pointed to emails from Muslim Student Union leaders with extensive plans to disrupt the talk. The students followed that plan closely, reciting their scripted lines before campus police escorted them out.
By their actions, Wagner said, Oren's right to free speech was hindered.
Defense attorneys insisted that the students stayed within the law while expressing their political views. "Each statement is for roughly five seconds. Some of the longest ones go 8 seconds — no more," said Dan Mayfield, who represents two of the defendants. "The evidence will show the interruption by the defendants — all of them together— lasts roughly a minute."
The prosecution itself infringes on the students rights, defense attorneys argued.
UCI claims it punished the students involved as well as the MSU chapter. The MSU was officially suspended for one quarter, which was reduced from the original year-long punishment recommended by a school investigation. MSU functions continued during the suspension but were sponsored by other campus groups. Student privacy laws prohibit the school from disclosing punishment meted out to the individual students.
The case has become a lightning rod for Muslim activists. The students are being singled out for prosecution "because they were protesting the activities of [Oren's] country, and also because the young men were all Muslims and because perhaps those behind the Prosecution thought that they could get away with it because of the rampant Islamophobia in this country," said Ameena Qazi, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Los Angeles chapter.
If convicted, the students could be fined and face up to six months in jail.
Related Topics: Campus | IPT News
Read More: UC Irvine, Michael Oren, Muslim Student Union, Campus
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Reader comments on this item
Defending Freedom of Speech
Submitted by Will James, Sep 9, 2011 11:47
Anyone who watched actual footage of the disruption of Michael Oren's presentation saw that it was an orchestrated event designed to prevent him from delivering his speech. Those thugs and bullies who shouted him down are now claiming that their right to free speech was infringed because of "rampant Islamophobia". What a shameless, sleezy defense!
Let's hope that outside of the media arena these phony arguments by the propagandists from CAIR will not be taken seriously. In the courtroom, where rational discussion and evidence are still the coin of the realm, it should prove simple enough to convict these people. Not because they are Muslims, but because they are thugs and bullies who have no respect for the rule of law.