Protester's fury over charge for anti-Hezbollah placard

A Jewish protester has hit out after he faced charges of racially aggravated harassment, which were later dropped, for holding a placard depicting a Hezbollah leader.

- AMY-CLARE MARTIN

The British man says he was arrested for holding the sign featuring a drawing of then Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah holding a pager to his face with the words “beep, beep, beep”.

The cartoon, which he describes as “political satire”, referred to a September 2024 Israeli attack nicknamed Operation Grim Beeper, in which pagers and walkie-talkies used by the Lebanese group, a proscribed terror organisation in the UK, detonated simultaneously, killing dozens of people and injuring thousands.

The protester’s home was raided and he was held overnight at a police station after he held the sign, which he says did not belong to him, at a Stop the Hate counter-protest against a proPalestine march in Swiss Cottage, northwest London, on 20 September last year.

He was later charged under the Public Order Act of causing racially or religiously aggravated harassment, alarm or distress by words or writing. But eight months later, the charges were dropped, he said, with Crown Prosecution Service saying there was insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction.