Today in Glasgow Sheriff Court, GFI members were exuberant as Israel hater Hasan Nowarah was found GUILTY of section 38 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010. This is a law that criminalises threatening or abusive behaviour.
The law states that a person commits an offence if they:
- Behave in a threatening and abusive manner
- The behaviour would likely cause a reasonable person to suffer fear or alarm.
On 14 May 2022, Nowarah came down to our stall on Buchanan Street with 2 huge Palestinian flags and proceeded to scream abuse through a megaphone at our volunteers for over 70 minutes. We have video evidence of this whole period and it was used in evidence throughout the trial.
He threatened the people at our stall, using disgusting discriminatory language and accusing GFI members of amongst other things, murdering children, supporting genocide, calling us scum and the cancer of humanity and threatened that hundreds of people who were attending an anti Israel demo on the Buchanan Steps would be down to get us, so we’d better leave the street immediately. This threat caused fear and alarm to a number of our volunteers and visitors to the stall
This court case has been ongoing for over two and half years, with 7 court appearances, including two when he absconded.
Sammy and Vicci Stein and the arresting officer were witnesses for the Crown. During the course of the trial, two separate court appointed lawyers for Nowarah decided they could not defend him so he was left to defend himself.
Today he spoke on his own behalf and when questioned by the prosecutor, he not only lied under oath but also proceeded to provide a back story that he felt would justify his actions.
The Sheriff listened most carefully today and throughout he advised Nowarah how he should conduct himself in court and gave him every opportunity to tell his side of the story in full and without interruption. His diatribe included a history going back to 1948 and the tragic story of how the conflict impacted his family in “Palestine”. He used this to justify his abusive behaviour against GFI on Buchanan Street.
His justification was that his abuse was not directed at us but at Israel and Zionism. This was blatantly untrue as he constantly referred to ”these people here”, and “you people” as he shouted his abuse.
However, the Sheriff discounted his back story and highlighted all of his lies and then proceeded to explain why he was guilty based on the overwhelming video evidence.
We were quite shocked to hear the sheriff then list all of Nowarah’s many previous convictions for similar offences including 2 fairly recent offences during which he used an offensive weapon.
Because the Sheriff today considered Nowarah’s crime to be extremely serious and in light of his previous convictions, sentencing has been deferred for social services background reports until 31 December.
Many of you will be aware that we have another court case coming up in February, relating to our vigil at Kelvingrove commemorating the Hamas atrocities of October 7th and our prayers to bring the hostages out of captivity in Gaza. The charges are very similar to those in this case but with a racially aggravated addition to the charge.
We all hope for a similar outcome. ... See MoreSee Less
