Dear All,

he curious case of the coconuts prosecution in Britain has raised many eyebrows – and many questions. The story began in November 2023 when Marieha Hussain was marching with her family at a pro-Palestine demonstration in London. Somebody asked to take a photograph of the placard she was carrying. The placard depicted a coconut tree with some coconuts falling from it, two of these coconuts had the faces of the then prime minister, Rishi Sunak and the then home secretary, Suella Braverman, who both happen to be non-white, right-wing politicians. Hussain was later arrested and charged over this placard, “on a charge of a racially aggravated public order offence.”

The photograph of her with the placard had been posted on social media along with the comment, “’It doesn’t get more racist than this. Among anti-racists you get the worst racists of them all.” Purely on the basis of this tweet the Metropolitan police announced that “it was actively looking for her.” Hussain attended the police station voluntarily three days later. Then in May this year she was arrested and charged. Finally, on the 13th of September, 10 months after the event, the judge acquitted her and ruled that the placard was “part of the genre of political satire.”

So why was a pregnant Muslim woman at a peace march singled out as somebody relaying a dangerously racist message? Why was she charged and brought to court for her placard when mainstream politicians making inflammatory and openly racist statements are never charged or prosecuted for racism and hate speech?

Initially, the case had seemed absurd. When Hussain appeared at Wimbledon Magistrates Court in June people who had assembled outside the court to show their support were also arrested by the police and the coconuts the protestors had brought with them were taken into ‘police custody’ as were the copycat coconut placards protestors were holding. What, one wondered, was actually going on here?

Coconut is, of course, a term used to refer to brown people who are “white on the inside,” i.e. they are committed to whiteness. This is similar to the American term Oreo, which is used to refer to people who are “black on the outside but white inside.” But, somehow, the Met Police decided that the coconuts placard was offensive and constituted a racially aggravated slur.

This matter went on for ten months. Because of the publicity and the media frenzy, the 37-year old Hussain lost her job as a secondary school teacher and her family’s address was published by the tabloid newspapers.

In court, the prosecutor contended that coconut was a racial slur and that Hussain had “crossed the line from legitimate political expression to racial insult.” But as Hussain said in her statement, this was a term often used in brown communities and families by brown people themselves. She said: “It was common language, particularly in our culture.” Two academic experts in racism, Professor Gus John and Professor Gargi Bhattacharya, gave evidence in support of Hussain and spoke about the term, its history and its context.

Rajiv Memon, Marieha Hussain’s lawyer, also questioned the police communications manager about why they had acted on the particular post on X. The post had been shared by an account with the username Harry’s Place and Menon asked the police official, “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?”

And so there it was: the trouble had been stirred up by a social media account linked to the Israeli state. The post created what used to be known as a twitterstorm (in the days when the platform was named Twitter rather than X) and for some reason, which is still not

clear, the police chose to act on this one post and to press charges.

Why did the police act in this way? The Met is still seen as a force which is aggressive about stopping/ checking and prosecuting people of colour and it is perceived as institutionally racist. This is certainly a factor but add to this the fact that recently security forces have cracked down on a number of pro-Palestine activists including, among others, the journalists Sarah Wilkinson and Richard Medhurst. The demonisation of pro-Palestinian supporters and peace activists is ongoing. Perhaps prosecutions such as this are a way to discourage people from joining pro-Palestine protests and to prevent them from making strong political statements.

But making her statement outside the court, Marieha Hussain said: “I’m more determined than ever to continue using my voice for Palestinians.” On what she had been put through, she said: “This ordeal has been agonising for my family and I, instead of enjoying my pregnancy I’ve been vilified by the media, I’ve lost my career, I’ve been dragged through the court system.” And she made the very important point that anti-racism laws are actually being used to target the communities that are victims of racism: “The laws on hate speech must serve to protect us more, but this trial shows that these rules are being weaponised to target ethnic minorities.”

Perhaps one positive outcome of the ridiculous coconut trial is that that at least some awareness will have been raised about this matter of targeting ethnic minorities to accuse them of insulting/ offending themselves.

Best wishes.

Umber Khairi