Dozens of people protested outside of a court in London as the trial of a British Asian woman charged with a hate crime over a satirical placard begins.
Marieha Hussain, 37, was seen carrying a sign depicting the then-prime minister Rishi Sunak and former home secretary Suella Braverman as coconuts at a pro-Palestine demonstration last November and was charged with a racially aggravated public order offence.
Campaigners say that her protest is a legitimate means of criticising right-wing politicians. Expressions like “coconut” and “c*on” have been used as insults within Black and Asian communities to describe other people from minoritised communities who are perceived as being sympathetic with racist agendas – implying that the person is brown on the outside but Eurocentric on the inside.
Outside Westminister Magistrates Court on Thursday morning, protesters raised concerns about freedom of speech being under attack, as three Metropolitan Police officers looked on.
Dr Asim Qureshi, the Research Director at CAGE, the advocacy group, told The Independent: “This case is ridiculous. In 24 years of doing this work, I have never seen a case as ridiculous as this one.
“We have to understand freedom of speech in the UK is being extremely racialised and there are limits to what you can say, as a person of colour, before the law is instrumentalised against you,”.
He compared Ms Hussain’s placard to a 2002 column by former prime minister Boris Johnson, who used the racist term “piccaninnies” to describe Black people, as well as the term “watermelon smiles”. Mr Johnson later defended the column as satire.
“So, we know that from the most senior positions of government down to the everyday street racism, that there is, for us as people of colour, a two-tiered system of the way in which freedom of expression is permitted.”
Ms Hussain, who’s nine months pregnant, was sacked from her job as a teacher following the police probe into her.
The Buckinghamshire resident attended the demonstration on 11 November 2023, along with thousands of people in central London, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Speaking to the crowd, lawyer Shola Mos Shogbamimu said: “Let us be very clear here that this persecution against Marieha is an abuse of prosecutory power – that is what it is.
“I do not see white people being prosecuted for calling other white people gammons.
“But the law that is meant to protect us, Black and brown people, is now being used against us? I think the hell not. Shame on the Met Police, shame on the CPS, shame on the politicians in this country.”
Ms Hussain appeared at Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court on 26 June and pleaded not guilty to the charge against her.
This case is the latest example of a people of ethnic minority heritage being investigated by the police for using intra-communal language to describe right-wing politicians’ and public figures’ political views.
This week, The Independent revealed that the UK’s first professor of Black studies, Professor Kehinde Andrews, is facing a criminal investigation over a video in which he called conservative commentator Calvin Robinson a “house n*gro”.
Speaking to the protest in London outside on Thursday, he said: “We have to defend our right to speak, we have to defend our right to language.
He said that the authorities seemed comfortable with the Black Lives Matter protests and similar anti-racism movements.
“But when the anti-racism gets a bit uncomfortable, makes you think a little bit, challenges you…nah, they want none of it. Then you’ve got to be arrested and charged.”
Inside the court, Ms Hussain, 37, pleaded not guilty to a racially aggravated public order offence.
Prosecutor Jonathan Bryan said the term “coconut” was a “well-known racial slur which has a very clear meaning”.
Defending, Rajiv Menon KC said the placard was “not abusive”, but a “political criticism” of then-prime minister Mr Sunak and then-home secretary Ms Braverman.
Mr Bryan said Ms Hussain, of Brands Hill Avenue, High Wycombe, had “crossed the line between legitimate political expression” and moved into “racial insult”.
Defending, Mr Menon said the “humorous and satirical” placard was “clearly a hand-drawn image”.
In a prepared statement read out to court by the prosecution, Ms Hussain said she had attended the pro-Palestine protest with her family.
She said in the statement: “The march progressed very slowly and in the course we passed many police officers who did not suggest that anything provocative or disturbing was taking place.
“At no stage did anyone on the march suggest that the posters were an expression of hate to anyone in society.”
She said the placard was in opposition to an “exceptional manifestation of hatred towards vulnerable or minority groups emanating from the home secretary and supported by the prime minister”.
She added in the statement: “I find it astonishing it could be conceived as a message of hate.”
Metropolitan Police communications manager Chris Humphreys told the court that images such as that of the placard came to the attention of the police service if the force’s social media account was “tagged in the post”.
He added that the Metropolitan Police “actively monitors” accounts that frequently post protest-related images.
Mr Menon told the court that the image of the placard had been posted by an X, formerly Twitter, account with the username Harry’s Place.
He asked Mr Humphreys: “Are you aware that Harry’s Place is a secretive political blog headquartered in Washington DC that has a particular interest in opposing any criticism of the Israeli state?”
Mr Humphreys replied: “I know Harry’s Place is an anonymous political blog.”
The trial continues.
Additional reporting by PA.