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Ten Muslim students who interrupted a speech by Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren in February of last year at UC Irvine were found guilty of two misdemeanors today, reports L.A. Now.
The charges against the students, who have come to be known as the Irvine 11 (eleven students were originally arrested), were two misdemeanors to conspire and then disrupt Oren's speech.
During Oren's speech, the students, three of whom were from UC Riverside, stood up and shouted protest statements at him that had been written beforehand. According to a website devoted to supporting the students, one such statement was, "Michael Oren, propagating murder is not an expression of free speech!”
L.A. Now reports that the trial centered on whose free speech rights were at stake: Oren's, for having his talk interrupted, or the students', for being prosecuted for speaking up during the talk.
