Members of the ‘Irvine 11’ stand at a recent hearing. Each student faces up to six months in jail for protesting the speech of Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren peacefully.

Washington, D.C. — The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
(ADC) expresses support for the eleven students from the University of
California (UC) Irvine and UC Riverside. According to the official website of
the group known as the “Irvine 11,” www.irvine11.com, the students
peacefully protested the February 8, 2010, speech of Israeli Ambassador Michael
Oren at UC Irvine.  At the event,
the students stood up and made individual statements of dissent; they were
thereafter immediately taken into custody. The students did not resist arrest,
did not commit any property damage, or engage in violence. Following a year of
criminal investigation, including the impaneling of a secretive grand jury, the
Orange County District Attorney charged all eleven students with two
misdemeanors.

ADC, along with other supporters of the “Irvine
11,” calls for the immediate dismissal of all charges against the
students. Furthermore, ADC calls on the Orange County prosecutors handling the
charges against the students to be immediately removed from the case based on
prosecutorial misconduct due to expressed ethnic and religious prejudices.
There is evidence that the prosecutors handling the case acted discriminatorily
– calling the students “anti-Semitic,” comparing them to the
“Klu Klux Klan,” and even internally labeling the case the “UCI
Muslim Case.” Recently, attorneys for the group filed a motion seeking to
bar the prosecutors from making any more public statements about the case. The
attorneys argue in court filings that prosecutors have violated their clients’
rights to a fair trial by making “ethically irresponsible” public
statements, including wrongly branding the students anti-Semitic and declaring
them guilty.

ADC is a firm believer in the first amendment rights of all
individuals – regardless of race, ethnicity or religion. The actions by the
Orange County Prosecutor’s office violate the basic fundamental principle of
freedom of expression, afforded to the “Irvine 11” students and to
all Americans.