A Jewish advocacy group says its members should also face criminal charges in light of Orange County prosecutors’ decision last week to charge 11 Muslim student protesters with conspiracy to disrupt the Israeli ambassador to the United States’ speech at UC Irvine last year.

Organizers for Jewish Voice for Peace said they plan to hand-deliver petitions Wednesday to the Orange County district attorney’s office containing the signatures of 5,000 supporters admitting that they too had committed the crime of interrupting a speaker or event to make a political point. They also will deliver a letter from more than a dozen rabbis from across the country condemning the prosecution of the Muslim students.

“Our own members have engaged in similar protests in the past without being charged, and stand by it as a form of legitimate expression in an open and democratic society,” the Oakland-based group said Monday in a news release. “The targeting of a group of Muslim American students, who were already sanctioned and whose organization was already suspended by their university as punishment, is unacceptable and will only strengthen Islamophobia and attempts to stifle political speech in this country.”

Prosecutors on Friday charged 11 members of the Muslim Student Union — eight students from UC Irvine and three from UC Riverside — with conspiring to disrupt the Feb. 8, 2010, speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren in what Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas called an “organized attempt to squelch the speaker.”


The protesters repeatedly shouted down Oren before being escorted away by police. They have denied planning the disruptions and intend to plead not guilty.

Jewish Voice for Peace, a liberal group that advocates for peace between Israelis and Palestinians and against Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, said the student protesters at UC Irvine were targeted because they are Muslim. Jewish groups that have interrupted speakers in the past — including a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year in New Orleans — have not faced criminal charges, they noted.

“I certainly have asked questions the speakers have considered disruptive to their narrative,” said Estee Chandler, organizer of the group’s Los Angeles Chapter. “The same type of protests these students did happen all over the country.”

tony.barboza@latimes.com