Thursday, January 19th, from 12-2PM UC Irvine’s Muslim Student Union (MSU) will be hosting Irvine 11′s Solidarity Service Day.

On September 23, 2011, 7 UC Irvine and 3 UC Riverside students were found guilty on two counts of
misdemeanors after speaking out against Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. The speech, sponsored by
the University, applauded the relationship between Israel and the U.S. and failed to mention the recent
bombardment upon Gaza that lead to 1400+ deaths.

Join the Irvine 11 at this event as they complete their community service hours upon the 3 year anniversary
of Operation Cast Lead.

We will be making bagged lunches for the homeless, and handing them out thereafter at the Santa Ana Civic Center.

Join the facebook event here.

Media Monitors Network | November 2, 2011

“What is unfortunate is that the debate over the Irvine 11, including arguments made by the
students’ defense, has focused so narrowly on the issue of free speech. It is not about the freedom
to speak, it is about the insider-status of the speaker that gives his or her words the gloss of legitimacy.
As public universities sell away the future of their students, and as state governments trade out the
livelihoods of the residents, the tale of the Irvine 11 becomes part and parcel of the saga of how the
US demonstrated its willingness to sacrifice the rights of the many for the privileges of the few.”
- Zainab Cheema

The University of California Students Association (UCSA) just passed legislation in support of the Irvine 11 and condemning the OCDA. The University of California Student Association (UCSA) is a coalition of UC students and student governments aimed at increasing the accessibility, affordability and quality of the UC system through advocacy and direct action organizing.

—

Against the Criminalization of Peaceful Protest

Whereas, February 8th 2010, the University of California, Irvine (UCI) Political Science
Department and School of Law welcomed Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren to
discuss U.S.-Israel relations, [1]

Whereas, ten students in the audience stood up and vocally expressed their opposing opinion in
protest of Ambassador Michael Oren, [2]

Whereas, UC students (2 from UC Riverside and 9 from UC Irvine) felt the need to voice their
opposition in a peaceful manner,

Whereas, the students were escorted from the room voluntarily, without any resistance,

Whereas, law enforcement officers proceeded to arrest the students,

Whereas, Michael Oren was able to finish his schedule speech and left earlier than planned,

Whereas, as an institution that fosters education, passion and expansion of knowledge, UCSA
seeks to provide students with a vehicle to protest.

Whereas, UCSA’s stance to uphold the Quality of education as specified in the Master Plan, thus
providing a safe platform for to exchange diverse ideas, cultures and political ideology,

Whereas, protests all come from effective communication towards a cause, and deeming it
conspiracy sets a precedent that will inevitably hinder students from ever protesting in the future,

Whereas, the administration and the Office of Student Conduct already disciplined the eleven
students as well as the Muslim Student Union (MSU),

Whereas, months after the students were disciplined by the Office of Student Conduct, the
Orange County District Attorney (OCDA) Tony Rackauckas, proceeded to charge the 10
students, [3]

Whereas, each of the students were charged with two misdemeanor counts, and “All 10

defendants in the Irvine 11 case have been found guilty of ​disturbing a public meeting and
engaging in a conspiracy to do so.”[4]

Whereas, the American Civil Liberties Union stated “Even if protests on college campuses
occasionally cross a line from protected speech into conduct, prosecutors cannot selectively
intervene to punish students who say things they do not like, [5]

Whereas, students reserve their right to peacefully advocate for their belief and should have a
safe place on a public campus to do so,

Let it be resolved, that UCSA opposes the criminalization of peaceful student protesters,

Let it be further be resolved, that UCSA calls for full administrative protection from external
criminal charges against peaceful protests,

Let it further be resolved, that UCSA commits to protect the rights of students and their rights to
express an opinion, political or otherwise, even though these opinions may be controversial,

“Let it further be resolved, that UCSA are in support of the Irvine 11’s right to protest and hold
the OCDA accountable for wrongfully prosecuting students for peaceful protest and democratic
participation.”

[1] http://www.socsci.uci.edu/node/921

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcaryZbL3gE

[3] http://www.orangecountyda.com/home/index.asp?page=8&recordid=2588

[4] http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2011/09/irvine_11_verdict.php

[5] http://www.aclu-sc.org/releases/view/802932

 By Kifah Shah

One day in high school my World History teacher announced in class that the lives of an entire city in Iraq did not amount to the value of one American soldier’s life. I’m not Iraqi, but the statement hurt me deeply and I walked out of class with tears. I went home that day, looked up articles about the newly-launched U.S. invasion of Iraq on Noam Chomsky’s website, wrote facts on blue post-it notes, and went to class the next day. Quivering, I raised my hand and tried raising my voice. I told Mr. Frost and my ninth-grade peers the reality of the situation: that Iraq did not house weapons of mass destruction, that the Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11, and that indeed, an Iraqi’s life counts.

On February 8, 2010, eleven students were arrested because they decided to raise their voices and assert that, indeed, a Palestinian’s life counts. The University of California, Irvine sponsored an event in which Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren spoke about and endorsed the ties between America and Israel. The eight UC Irvine and three UC Riverside students who were arrested – now called the “Irvine 11” – rightfully considered it their duty to present an alternative narrative; one that is frequently suppressed in this country.

I am not going to tell you about how responsible and upright these students are. I am not going to tell you about how they consulted with lawyers and carefully planned the protest beforehand to stay within legal limitations. I am not going to tell to you that what occurred is normative in the context of a political meeting. But I will tell you that some of those students had family and friends who were massacred in Operation Cast Lead, which was in part orchestrated by Michael Oren. I will tell you that more than 1400 people died that winter in Gaza and the infrastructural damages to schools, homes, mosques and businesses have not been addressed till this day. I will tell you that during the bombardment a friend of mine called his family back home in Gaza asking them how they were doing, to which they simply replied by sticking their phone outside the window so that he could hear the sounds of constant bombs and missiles in the background. I will remind you that Palestinians do not have the privilege of silencing this reality, let alone speaking about it.

Realizing this, the Irvine 11 decided to act as a mouthpiece so that those who suffer could be heard. They did not simply participate in a protest or enact a demonstration of dissent. Theirs was an act that demanded Palestinians and their narratives be recognized and heard; that their lives be considered and counted. I have had the privilege of working closely with the Irvine 11. They will remind you that what they did was not heroic or unique. They will humbly dismiss themselves and act neither as victims nor heroes. However, they and their families went through hardship over the past year and that cannot be overlooked. The Irvine 11 will also remind you that the oppression they endured was only a very small, microscopic example of what Palestinians endure on a daily basis. This does not mean that what happened with the Irvine 11 is not an injustice.

I have heard many people discuss the Irvine 11’s fight as a mild, inconsequential issue, and maybe I am a little sensitive about it, but maybe you should be, too. Maybe we should feel compelled to recognize what we have inherited. Maybe we need to remind ourselves that people did not struggle through the Civil Rights Movement, the United Farm Workers’ Movement, the Ethnic Studies Strikes and the anti-apartheid movements so that we could recline and claim that something is not too bad. Maybe we should remember our families who are not here but living under occupation, or in hunger, or in war-torn, impoverished areas. We have a responsibility to remember where we came from and to remember that our voices are our strongest weapons. We have a duty to speak on behalf of the oppressed and examine our own privileges before we kick back and proclaim something is unworthy of our attention or our voice. We have a responsibility to recognize that voice is a privilege and a gift. Silence, then, is not an option.

(ORANGE COUNTY, CA, 10/19/11) – On September 23, 2011, ten students, commonly dubbed the “Irvine 11,” were found guilty on two misdemeanor counts: conspiracy to disrupt a meeting and disruption of a meeting. The eleventh student, who was arrested as he was leaving the lecture hall with dozens of other protestors, had his charges dismissed earlier upon completion of community service hours. Today, Irvine 11 defense attorneys filed notices of appeal to contest the students’ convictions.

Jewish Voice for Peace created a project on tumblr where supporters of the Irvine 11 can virtually show their solidarity with the Irvine 11.

Supporters are encouraged to submit their own photos of support by visiting the i-stand.tumblr.com website and clicking on the link that says “Take a Stand Today.”

Here are some photographs of various Irvine 11 Supporters around the globe! Thank you Jewish Voice for Peace!

I’m Jewish. I visited the West Bank and saw the injustice. I stand against racism. I support the Irvine 11.

I’m Druze. And I stand against injustice, and I stand for the Irvine 11!  The photo is of me and Palestinian kids from Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Lebanon. I am proud of the courage of the Irvine 11 to stand and speak for those who are voiceless. We will never be silenced.

 

I am a young Jew. Therefore I stand against racism. And I stand for Free Speech. And I stand with the Irvine 11.

 

Christian Peacemaker Teams in the South Hebron Hills, Palestine stand in solidarity with the Irvine 11.

I’m an atheist with many Muslim and Jewish Friends. I stand with the Irvine 11.

On Tuesday, October 18th, the Associated Students at the University of California Irvine unanimously passed a resolution in support of the Irvine 11′s freedom of speech and condemns the criminalization of peaceful protesters.

The resolution is available on the ASUCI website and included below.

On October 16th, 2011, one of the Irvine 11 Osama Shabaik published an Opinion article in the Jerusalem Post. You can read the article below:

Unprecedented silencing of dissent at UC Irvine

By Osama Shabaik | Jerusalem Post

I was the first student to protest Ambassador Michael Oren’s appearance at the University of California, Irvine in February, 2010. Minutes into the speech, I stood up and yelled, “Michael Oren, propagating murder is not an expression of free speech!”

I was moved to this simple act of protest after the devastation I witnessed in the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead, which resulted in the deaths of over 1400 Palestinians, including more than 700 women and children, at the hands of the Israelimilitary. Months after the attacks, I visited Gaza to deliver medical aid. There, I met the Sammouni cousins, three young girls who were orphaned when an Israeli bomb fell on their home and killed 45 members of their family.

Many families still lived in the rubble of their destroyed homes, factories, work places, and schools. Those still lucky enough to have homes lived with clear remnants of the war. Besides the inability to rebuild due to the Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip, virtually every home and building was riddled with bullet holes measuring inches in diameter.Those images compelled me to raise a voice against the abhorrent devastation and disregard for human life caused by the policies of Oren’s government.

Despite the fact that I acted in accordance with a long tradition of protest at American universities, I was arrested. The Orange County District Attorney eventually filed criminal charges against me and ten of my peers.The charges were unprecedented. Just a few months before our protest, thousands of students at UC Irvine undertook an aggressive protest against tuition increases. Demonstrators entered large, 500-person lecture halls chanting “walk out!” to urge students to leave their classes and demonstrate.

At that time, senior UCI administrators and police officers followed the demonstrators as they moved through every major lecture hall on campus. Despite these interruptions (and even a shoving match between one student and a professor), no arrests were made or threatened. No disciplinary action was taken against the students who disrupted the classes or the campus organizations that endorsed the protest.

In contrast, our protest, which, totaled just seven minutes over the course of a 90 minute lecture, was met with the full force of the law. After I spoke up, I began to make my way to the exit. I was immediately met by police and escorted to a storage room. There, I was placed in front of a table stacked with dozens of handcuffs, searched and arrested.

After protests by nine more students and a large walkout where an eleventh student was arrested, Oren completed his prepared remarks and was left with nearly 15 minutes to answer questions from the audience. Instead of fielding questions, however, he left early to attend a Los Angeles Lakers basketball game and to meet their star player, Kobe Bryant.

In an editorial earlier this month, this newspaper wrote that we were eventually charged with a misdemeanor “for planning to trample and then trampling the freedom of speech of Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren.” In reality we were charged with disturbance of a public meeting and of conspiracy to do so. We have appealed our conviction and are hopeful the court will overturn the decision.

Some people claim that our First Amendment right to free speech does not include the right to block someone else from exercising his right to speak. But rights can only be trampled upon and censored by the government, not by individuals. Furthermore, although our protest was mundane compared to other acts of protest in the university’s history, the Orange County District Attorney has managed to delude even The Jerusalem Post into believing that the charges were fair and justified. This newspaper claimed that both sides, the Israeli government and American protesters, must be protected from interruption, as if the parties are on an equal playing field. Rather than “trample” Oren’s freedom of speech, said the paper, we should have voiced our opposition during the question & answer session.

But that argument fails to realize that questions and answers are not an effective form of protest against states, especially those engaged in war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. States enhance their power by creating a framework within which non-state players can challenge state policies. Due to an imbalance of power, to effect real change ordinary citizens must challenge state power outside of this framework. We did not wish to politely ask questions but rather to make a poignant statement. We came to protest Israel’s actions, and a Q & A session was not the means through which we wanted to act. An effective protest must voice its opposition in a manner that challenges the policies Oren represents and the framework through which those policies are propagated. Protesters who threw tea into the Boston Harbor, who sat-in at segregated lunch counters, who marched against South African apartheid, and who are now protesting for their basic human rights across the Arab world all understood this crucial distinction.

Acts of protest must be judged by their ability to empower marginalized voices to speak out and demand their basic human rights, whether in Iran or Irvine. The First Amendment has long recognized the importance of that value, despite the district attorney’s attempt to chip away at thisprotection. Only by upholding this right can we protect the free exchange of ideas and the potential for social change.

Israeli officials will continue to meet protests in the United States and around the world as long as they uphold unjust policies like the ones that caused three young girls to be orphaned. Of all institutions, I would expect a newspaperto support our right to free speech and to protest injustice loudly.

The writer is a student at the University of California, Irvine.

10/11 marked the National Day of Solidarity with the Irvine 11.

UC, CSU, and community college students across California held demonstrations, organized teach-ins, and wrote op-eds about the trial and how its outcome threatened to quell free speech. Whether it was done silently and symbolically by placing tape over one’s mouth or by speaking to others and distributing informational sheets to your peers, the Stand with the 11 Campaign salutes your work. On 10/11, it was through these actions that we challenged the verdict itself by taking demonstrative steps to sustain critical discussions on campus, and we will continue doing so.

Stay tuned for next steps on how to do this, and thank you for standing with the Irvine 11.