UK court clears woman of voicing support for Hamas in university speech

Sarah Cotte said her comments were not in support of Hamas, but in support of Palestinians’ right to resist.A London court has cleared a British woman of supporting Palestinian group Hamas in a speech she gave outside her university in 2023.The jury at the Central Criminal Court, more commonly known as the Old Bailey, on Friday found Sarah Cotte, 22, not guilty of expressing support for the group that’s designated a “terrorist” organisation under UK law.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Andy Burnham apology for Labour stance on Gaza: Is UK’s position shifting?list 2 of 3The British state has recast protest as terrorismlist 3 of 3UK charities, protest groups: Israeli ban threat ‘will not intimidate us’end of listPublic prosecutors had alleged that Cotte voiced support for Hamas two days after the group led the deadly attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.During a speech she gave outside the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London at the time, she expressed “unconditional solidarity” with the Palestinian resistance, the court was told. Prosecutors claimed this was a “thinly veiled reference” to Hamas.Cotte repeatedly rejected attempts to equate the two, telling the court: “I don’t support Hamas and I have never supported Hamas. I was supporting the right to resist.”Speaking to Al Jazeera after the verdict on Friday, Cotte said the court’s decision was a “testament to how people are feeling about British support for Zionism”.“I never condemned the right to armed struggle in Palestine,” Cotte said. “I didn’t let them corner me and make this a conversation about what Zionists want to talk about.”Instead, she said, “I used it as a platform to talk about what I thought was important, which was the Palestinian struggle, British support for Zionism and our rights as people of conscience.”Hamas was officially proscribed in its entirety by the UK government in late 2021, when its political wing was also banned. Its military wing, the Qassam Brigades, has been proscribed since 2001. Those found guilty of supporting such groups can face up to 14 years in prison.On the final day of the week-long trial on Friday, Cotte again denied expressing support for Hamas during her speech at SOAS while she was a student there and argued that she had only expressed support for Palestinians’ “right to resist”.