The Coconut Placard Case: What Happened to Marieha Hussain?

The first passage called Miyako connect growing up was my father and by the time I became a teenager it was definitely one confused, one confused youngster and some of the things that I would do that also embarrassing now as an adult is I would do I would whitewash my name but yeah growing up post 9/11 I think what we did which a lot of Asians did at the time was that we weren't quiet I took a module that I really remember and it was media crime and criminal justice and it blew my mind what's going on everyone welcome back to roundings of a seat where we sit down with the people who've actually lived through the history we're all arguing about online I'm your host Ahmed Singh and today we're diving into the now infamous coconut placard case my guest today is barihah who's saying a teacher sociologist first generation Brit and the woman at the center of this case we're going to talk about what it means to grow up being called a coconut to fill the pressure to erase your own brownness and then years later to stand your ground when the police the media and the politics around protest all turn their attention onto you will also explore Marie has journey that took her from shrinking her identity to standing up publicly with that placard what happened next what her trial exposed about the country and the lessons she wants others to take from it if any part of this resonates with you feel free to subscribe drop a comment about what you think or leave a like you could also share this with someone who you think will find it interesting all right with all of that out the way let's game before we go kind of through all of this and we were just talking off camera about how I've been following this story from the day it broke and it hit Twitter who are you kind of can you tell us a bit more about your upbringing you were just sharing something now with me which I just thought was I wasn't expecting but I think it goes to echo the journey of a lot of people from the South Asian background like I myself had a lot of um identity issues is growing up and especially looking the way I look and kind of standing out from the crowd so yeah like what was your upbringing like where did you grow up what kind of home and community did you come from and also I think how like who were you growing up how did that develop through kind of your early years okay so I was born in Scotland and yeah Glasgow Scotland and my father is a doctor I was a junior doctor when I was born and he was low coming a lot and we moved around a lot and just to give you a perspective of how much we moved and I was born in Scotland my brother was born a year after me Birmingham and my sister was born a year after him in Plymouth and then we lived in Wales and a few other places and then we did a stint abroad and we moved to Saudi so I didn't really come from a fixed community we weren't really embedded in a single community we were mixed and moved around quite a lot and by the time I was a teenager we settled in Buckinghamshire and my introduction really to the word coconut came from home my the first passage called me a coconut growing up was my father and I was I was a true coconut I was and it was a joke and it was banter and it was funny and it was true I had I was struggling with identity and I really wanted to absorb as much as I could of white society at the expense of my own identity so that part I think that last part's really important at the expense of my my identity which is that I'm Pakistani which is that I'm Muslim which is that I'm brown which is that my parents are immigrants which is that my mum has a really strong accent and everything else that goes in between so I disliked all of those things about me and I really wanted to whitewash myself as much as possible and because I'm a young star I don't know that I'm doing this it is all kind of subconscious I don't really know what I'm doing and at that point I'm not harming anybody either I'm just hurting my own spirit and my own identity and maybe my grandparents a little bit and you know my dad recognized what was going on and he used to joke and say this this one she's a coconut and worry how you're a coconut and I said that in court as well it's main to the jar to go in the courtroom that's how I grew up and the word coconut was long around and we're first generation British board and many of us were coconuts growing up and we had to really work through that and so I didn't I grew up into adulthood not realizing that there could be any issue with this word because there never has been and yeah that's how I grew up that's amazing I just think the more that and this is why I enjoy doing this is obviously the more that I talk to yourself the more I'm just surprised by some of the facts and it's not that they're surprising in themselves but it's just that you're like wow this story is a lot deeper than what I think you get the impression of when you just read a news article or or you see a tweet and you're essentially more British than most British people because you have been all over the country and realistically right like as in Plymouth Birmingham and Glasgow did you say in the space? yeah Glasgow Wales we did a good sit-in Wales and we've been in Buckinghamshire for you know 20 years now I guess the question just on that is as someone who as you're growing up you're and I I don't think this is necessarily unique to you or to I and I think a lot of brown folk a lot of people of color who are from non-white communities will find this or will have will relate to this because you're constantly almost trying to battle like I give you a really random example I was helping with a she's the lady who essentially organises all of the re or the re curriculum in Coventry and they're taking a big emphasis on kind of getting lived experience so talking to people from the different religious groups and asking them what they would ask answer to these questions and I was saying to her how remarkable it is to hear what they're doing because I remember going to school and getting given a sheet about Sikhism and I would be like actually my lived experience doesn't match with this sheet so am I now wrong and as a teenager you're almost accept that authority because you're like oh god school must be correct so now to see it being flipped on its head I was like the impact you will have on these children is just remarkable and that's something that I wanted to bring back to yourself which is as you're growing up and you're moving through all of these different communities how is it growing up as someone who is grappling with their identity grappling with society at large also just growing up and going through everything that that comes with and then also having to change schools and everything else that comes with that like what was that like and how did that mold you in a particular way because I'm sure you got to university and you were like hold on this world is actually completely different. I think looking back now and moving around a lot and never having a set a fixed set of groups of friends and particularly friends that are Muslim and brown like myself and being around predominantly white people means that my struggle with my brownness and my lack of whiteness was stronger than ever and I wanted to fit in more wherever I went I wanted to fit in desperately and I recognised as a youngster one of the best ways to do that is to strip myself of my otherness and nobody it's so interesting because nobody's taught me to do that nobody directly explicitly told me my parents have never said when you go to school don't really bring up that you're a Muslim don't really talk about your religion you don't really need to talk about where we're from in Pakistan don't talk about what life is like Maria you know don't say don't joke about things they never did anything like that it's something that you pick up implicitly from everywhere jokes banter the media conversations you over here adults say and you're you know what celebrities and what pop stars are famous and what's beautiful and what's not and what's good and what's bad and it's all being fed to me every minute of every day implicitly but it's building up and identifying myself so I think that even people who do grow up surrounded by people that look like them have their own religious beliefs and things like that even they would struggle because that implicit force is so powerful they would still struggle with that but I did feel that I struggled so much with it and by the time I became a teenager it was definitely one confused one confused youngster some of the things that I would do that also embarrassing now as an adult is I would do I would whitewash my name and we would just talk about this earlier I would white my name is Maria but if somebody accidentally mispronounced saying called me Maria or Mariah was happy I would go out my way to mispronounce it you know you don't have to Maria what is Maria you can call me Mariah I love that that's great and when I was young the trend of colored contacts came out Asians will know this that was right up my street I would do anything to get rid of my brown eyes and have nice blue eyes nice gray eyes and it was all part of that self hatred that I was fostering inside that I didn't I couldn't give it a name or a label, it was two. Mae'n iawn i'r dwi'n gwaith, mae'n iawn i'r dwi'n gwaith, mae'n iawn i'r dwi'r dwi'n gwaith o'r dwi'n gwaith o'r dwi'n gwaith o'r dwi'n gwaith o'r dwi'n gwaith o'r dwi'n g Mae'r gweithio'r gweithio, mae'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio. Mae'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio. Mae'r gweithio'r gweithio. Mae'r gweithio. Mae'r gweithio. Mae'r gweithio. Mae'r gweithio. Mae'r gweithio. Mae'n iawn i'r oes. Mae'n iawn i'r oes. Mae'n iawn i'r oes. Mae'n iawn i'r oes. Mae'n iawn i'r oes. Mae'n iawn i'r oes. Mae'n iawn i'r oes. Mae'n iawn i'r oes. ac mae'n gwaithio'n gwaith i'n gwaithio'n gwaithio'n gwaithio'n gwaithio'n gwaithio'n gwaithio'n gwaithio'n gwaithio'n gwaithio' 14 or 15 years old when 9 or 11 happened. I remember I think I was in year 9 and the fallout from that. And I think going back to what you said about the way that you look and confusing you for Muslims and all those it's not, or some have been large in comments. I think if I remember correctly the first, the first anti, post 11 anti-Muslim murder was of a Sikh man. It wasn't even of a Muslim. So this is what happens when the media and the and governments when they do this. There's no context, there's no appreciation for cultural religious differences. They've bond all brown people together and everybody is in danger. Just like we're facing today, just like now. Yes, yes, yes. Just like we're facing now, the anti-Muslim hatred that is reaching a boiling point actually in the UK, it doesn't just endanger Muslims, it beth gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r yn ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio. Mae'n yw'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio i'n gweithio i'n gweithio i'n gweithio i'n gweithio i'n g Mae'n ddechrau'r ddechrau'r ddechrau'r ddechrau'r ddechrau'r ddechrau'r ddechrau'r ddechrau'r ddechrau'r wythau'r ddói. a'r tryng i'n gweithio'r proximitio'r oes i'n gweithio i'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio'r oes i'n gweithio'r oes i'n gweithio'r oes i'n gweithio'r oes i'n gweithio'r oes. i ni'n ni'n ni'n ni'n ni'n ni'n ni'n ni'n ni'n ni'n ni'n ni'n ni' yw'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n It's a live time of turning things around and really tackling the colonial mindset that I had. It really began looking back at university. I studied sociology and psychology. I took a module that I really remember and it was media crime and criminal justice and it blew my mind. It was my first introduction to racism bias. It's the first time I learned about Rupert Murdoch, i ddŵm i'r sgweith i'n ddŵm i'n gwybod i'n gwybod i'n gwybod i'n gwybod i'n gwybod i'n gwybod i'n gwybod i'n gwybod Mae'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio'r gweithio'n gweithio'r gweithio, mae'n gweithio'r gweithio'r gwaithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gwe Mae'n mynd i'n byddai, mae'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i' Mae'n sy'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn sy'n gwneud sy'n gwneud sy'n gwneud sy'n gwneud sy'n gwneud sy'n gwneud sy'n a'r bies, mae'r morea lennag ddoddau, mae'r morea lennag ddoddau yn rhaid. Mae'r mwy'n proddau yn proddau, mae'r mwy'n proddau yn rhaid. Mae'r mwy'n proddau yn rhaid. ac mae'n gweithio o'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio'r gweithio, ac mae'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio'r gweithio, mae'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio, ac mae'n gallu mwy'n gweith i'w i'n gallu mwy'n gweith i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i' Mae'n ddod yr hynny, mae'n ddod hynny, mae'n ddod hynny. Mae'n ddod hynny, mae'n ddod hynny, mae'n ddod hynny. a brother man who were then the Prime Minister and Home Secretary as coconuts thinking nothing of it thinking it's the way I've always grown up this is banter this is a joke I'm taking a pop at them I'm not trying to be nice or kind I'm holding my hand up to that and I'm not put we're not I mean it's my democratic right to be critical of politicians and we're not here to just applaud everything that they have to say and do we are here to really hold them to account and that's the freedom that's my freedom of speech and that's a democracy that the UK has bombed other countries for so I'm standing on that I've gone into London I've taken this black card I'm calling them coconuts I call them coconuts for the very reason that I understand coconuts to be they are aligning themselves with far right white supremacist agendas and you can see that through their racist dangerous rhetoric particularly from Swela Bravman and all the dangerous racist policies that Rishi Sunak was pushing on at the time so I just think to myself I see what's going on here brown person to brown person I see what you're doing I'm gonna call you out okay and I go to the protest no problems and the day of the protest was wonderful everybody loved the placards now I always go with the placard I almost always try to make a statement and go with the placard saying something showing something this was my most popular placard ever the amount of pictures people took of my placard and I've said this many times the amount of people's pictures I took with my placard you know can I take a picture of the placard and I'm taking their picture with my placard nobody not one single time in the three or four hours we were at the protest nobody asked me what does that mean what's what's that supposed to be so no one no one made a comment no one said this is like no black person no brown person no white person asked me wow and that's the range of people we had it's such a diverse people yeah yeah yeah protesting for partisan nobody asked me and more importantly nobody said to me I think that might be offensive I'm I'm bothered by your placard no never you know the type of person I am if somebody has said to me that they're feeling insulted or offended by something I don't I would have I would have backed I might have backed track I said oh my god really let's put this back in the car okay I'm not sure about this no no no my understanding of coconut was was completely reciprocated and the placard was very well received throughout the whole day and so you know the day goes on and then I actually remember the very moment that that picture was taken of me and what happened was we pulled it to the side because we were with kids and they were getting a bit naked now and I'd found myself in front of a wall that was absolutely full of people sitting or standing on it and many many many cameras anyway sorting the kids out snacks this and that tying up shoelaces having a little rest and I'm holding the placard at this point why do the placards going around the group at this point I'm holding it and somebody a voice from the crowd in front it reaches us oh I love your placard can I take a picture of it now this has happened tens of times up until now so I go yeah sure and I hold it up now most people don't know that I cook not placards there was something on the reverse of it and I had really I had drawn a picture of I painted a picture of Cruella de Vil and I'd stuck swell a braverman's face on it and I'd written underneath Cruella braverman so I held it up and at the person this voice with this male voice shout so I said oh yeah great but not that side can you turn around for me please and I go yeah and I turn it around now in my naivety I held it up you can see that I'm holding it the placard up and away from my face and I'm thinking because I don't want to be in every bit of the pictures I naively think he's taking a picture of this placard I don't know that I've been pictured in it I'm smiling off into the distance looking and talking out of the people I have no idea my pictures been taken it was taken at 3 18 pm if that's the time it was uploaded and that's about the time it was taken as well so it was uploaded almost immediately the police have commented underneath at 3 24 so within six minutes the police have commented underneath and they were the first people to comment underneath the first comment underneath Harry's place with my picture saying the most the most racist of them all are anti-racist something like that it said the first people to comment underneath was the metropolitan police saying we are proactively looking for the person in this picture and we'll take proactive action when found so I saw I saw when it hit Twitter at that point so I saw it when it was like we're looking for this woman and I was like holy shit why are they looking for a woman for this placard right one question just quickly on that and this is something that I don't think we can never never necessarily prove but do you think that there was some connection between the person who took your photo and the police yes it came out it was revealed in court so it's quite an interesting dark and in city's relationship the person who took this picture their twitter account is Harry's place Harry's place is a pro Zionist anti-Muslim far right hateful, spiteful twitter account and they post they are constantly trying to push anti-Muslim anti-black and brown agendas constantly it was revealed in court that Harry's place is a twitter page based in Washington DC so it begs the question why are they uploading pictures of black and brown people in the UK constantly tagging the metropolitan police and why is the metropolitan police leasing with them why is this person anonymous twitter account based in Washington telling the police I've got this citizen I've taken a picture of in the UK tag the met police and the met police within minutes have responded so you're working together you're working together it's it's it's armistice date November 11th 2023 solar brotherman is on the cusp of losing her job she's called the Palestinian marches hate marches she's condemned the police for allowing the plot the marches to go on that criticism is going to be the nail on the coffin for her and the police are it seems to be the police are actively looking for hate on this march mind you Palestinian marches one of the hallmarks of Palestinian gatherings and solidarity is that they are peaceful okay on that very same day you have the far right coming out they're not happy that the police have allowed this protest gone they're emboldened by solar brotherman's comments they're emboldened by wishy soon ex silence and they come out and they are having violent clashes with the police with protesters with each other and it's all well documented and they're over there at the sanataf defending it i don't know from what and they are in violent clashes with the police over there so harry's place is taking my picture saying look at this hateful person and the police who and the media who can't find hate on the hate march home in on me and my satirical placard so police have responded within six minutes i'm walking on the march for further two hours i have no idea that my picture is circulating online i have no idea that the metropolis police are looking for me and we then leave the protest and we speak some police officers we can't find the road where our car is parked so we find some police officers that there was three or four of them and say hey do you know where this road is and did it and they and they really kindly help us at that moment it's now it was about five thirty p.m five five thirty p.m it's dark because it's November it's now dark outside i'm holding the placard and i'll never forget the police officer that was speaking to my husband the person that the officer next to him was having a good look at our placards having read of the words and i'm going to send this on our way no problem there's no issue mind you the police are looking for me they've started around for me online i'm speak i'm there in front of police officers i'm holding the placard in question no police interest in that placard whatsoever it was in the car journey on the way home is when a family met family friend messages me she says my heart have you seen this picture of you online and at that point it had like a million views already and i i don't even have twitter so i quickly get i'm twitter details from you know from family member and again online and things spiral really quickly from there actually so when do you eventually get um i guess cautioned or arrested or like how does it work like what happens next and at what point do you get the police appeal because from what i've read it seems to be relatively fast in terms of how everything happened and i guess just the last question on this bit is do you feel that and i think we've already kind of alluded to this already but do you feel like the search for you was proportional or was it something or was there like an Was it almost unjewely too fast? Was there something behind it that went, hmm, this dis smells a bit weird. Yeah, I mean, six minutes. I've never seen the police post for a missing child that quickly. Yeah, true. So there's something very rare in Sydney is going on there. What happens is that it's the same night around 9pm, the metropolitan police take their picture from Harry's place, the exact same picture, and then they put out that wanted notice for me, and that I was wanted in relation with a hate crime. So they've officially posted it on their Twitter account, and it immediately racks up millions and millions really fast, right? And every time I refresh on Twitter, I see that my family pictures, pictures of my children, my wedding, things like that are appearing online. And as far as Zionist and anonymous accounts are digging deep trying to help the police find me. We start shutting down all my online accounts that I have, you know, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. We shut everything down. And we are advised to leave home because the press attention was becoming, you know, their interest was so, so, so much. And so I said, no, I don't think so. I think it'll be fine. And I can see the daily mail online, sky news online. It's picked it up. But I think it will, I just think it's a thing that it will, it's a viral thing and it will be over tomorrow. It's a viral thing, but it will be over tomorrow. That's what, that's where I think we're at. Sunday comes round. We can't get hold of the, or teaching union. Can't get hold of a lawyer. I'm not going to speak to the police when I'll speak to anybody until I've been loyed up. So we're sitting and we're we're sorting all of that out. It transpires that by Sunday, the police know who I am. They've got the details from who I am. They know who I am. My name worry live where I work. They know who I am. So the purpose of that notice they put up has been met, but they don't take the picture down for a further four days. They leave it up. Why are you leaving it up? It's whipping up hatred. It's it's whipping up a lot of pylon against me. You know who I am now. Why didn't you take it down? So just just to clarify in that. So they knew your details. They had your details. They had confirmed all of this and then by Sunday. And then they still allowed your photo to stay on on Twitter for four days. They do. They do. Wow. Monday comes round. I get loyed up. And we start preparing a police statement and my police interview is booked. So it's a, I was never arrested. I think that's a common misconception. So this is a story that I've been aware. I was never arrested. I had to go in for a voluntary police interview that was booked in for the Tuesday evening. So I spent all of my money preparing a police statement with my lawyers and sitting in the lawyer's office. I've left my two children, my six children, my one-year-old with their paternal grandparents. And my, my own family start calling my mom, my daughter, my sisters. And they say, you know the press are outside. And they say, and I say, oh my god, really? They say, yeah, they're knocking on the door. They're calling the house. My brothers asked them to step off the property. They've parked outside on the road and they're waiting there. And they, they rang the house phone so many times that my sister unplugged the house phone. My parents closed the curtains. They sit indoors and they, they don't leave. Anyway, my father's a doctor. So he's got to go to work. So he does leave. They're trying to picture him. He puts a face mask on and he just tries to drive to work and come back and just goes to, he's been an energy worker for 40 years. He goes to work. And my husband and I don't return home because we believe that press might be outside our home. Obviously, we live separately. We don't return home and we don't return home for further three, four days. And so my children that I left with my paternal grandparents, they stayed there. My older son, he's stayed, obviously, but because he loves it, he doesn't have a problem with it. He loves staying over there. My one-year-old has never, ever been left overnight. But, but to be left for four days, that's not happened with him yet. I have no choice. We cannot meet back up. The press are everywhere. And, and it seems to be a dangerous time. We are feeling threatened and intimidated. The police have set the whole of the far right and pro Zionist out to look for me. And I feel like a truly wanted woman over this placard and I feel intimidated and in danger and scared. So we separate and we all go into hiding. Tuesday, go for my police interview. The police interview was absolutely extraordinary. I have this police officer interviewing me who's taken personal offense to my placard. He's enraged. He's mocking me, belittling me. He's yelling and shouting. At one point, he goes on for, you know, he has a rant about the placard and the word coconut. And, you know, what I'm wearing that date the March because I'm wearing a hoodie in the picture that has free Palestine on the front. And he mentions it, brings it up. And when my I'm solicitor intervenes, it says you don't have a question. In fact, you're heck doing my client. Just ask the questions. He absolutely loses it and threatens to have my call in the inspector and have my solicitor removed from the interview. It's my right to be in the with my solicitor's doing his job, making sure you just ask the questions and not to bully me in there. And he's threatened to have him removed. And I found that really intimidating. I was quite shocked and surprised by that. And at the end of it, the other police officer starts reading out tweets online saying, well, this brown person finds it racist and that brown person finds it racist and starts reading tweets. So from this from the get go, you can see that the entire case is online. They're getting their information from social media. And the whole argument is that it's racist, right? So the crime that I was charged with was that it was a racially aggravated public order offense. And the idea is that the placard, the markers of the crime model it inciting violence, it's hostile, obviously racist, abusive. And grotesquely offensive. Now the prosecution, they agree from the get go that it doesn't incite violence. It's actually not particularly hostile. It's not offensive. I'll come back to in a minute. The two day trial was that it was abusive. Okay, there was abusive. Now offensive, offensive is different because you're allowed to be offensive. You're allowed to be offensive when you're critiquing politicians and policies. You're allowed to, it's a political critique is a protected speech. So you can't be criminalized for being critical. Any criticism by its nature is going to be offensive. If I criticize the color of your show, I don't think Gray looks good on you to be honest. You might feel offended by that. Okay. Any criticism is by its nature going to be offensive to the receiver. You can't be prosecuted for this. Also, I'm at a protest. I'm protesting right on March. If I'm not going to plead critique politicians at a march, where else am I going to do it? It's the absolute place to do something like that. So it's not offensive isn't really even the problem here. Offensive, everyone else might have a problem with. Offensive isn't the crime here. The crime is that it was abusive. To who we have yet to find out, the prosecution have never been able to explain. Who's the crackle? Is it specifically to those two people? Are they being abused? Were she soon outside of parliament? Because I don't understand them to be the complainant at the minute. So is it abusive to. So it was never this, it was never, so I guess let me, I guess I kind of want to ask this question in a two ways, which is there was never, it was never revealed who the complainant was then. No. So this all, so it wasn't the state taking you to court. This was actually someone complaining that led you to go to court then. My understanding is the state has taken me to court. The CPSO division to charge me. But if there was a complainant, like for example, if we she soon happened to all of parliament, I've seen it and they've reported it to the police and they said, I want, yeah, we didn't hear it. They wouldn't, I think my standards, they would need to come to court then and explain how they've been abused and victimized by my placoid that didn't happen. So who's complaining? Who's being abused? Who are the victims here? Is it Rishisunax or a parliament? Is it white people? Is it other brown people? Nobody knows. It's never been explained. The prosecution never been able to explain who's the victim? Hey, what's happening? Who have I used? So the whole case was about that. But if I go back really quickly, sorry, I think that's my answer. No, please, please. I really want to go back really quickly and just explain that after I've done my police interview on Tuesday, I go home on Wednesday. I've got my children. I've left them since Sunday. I pick up my kids and I take them home. And I think it's over. By then, the times have done a story on me. This big revealing page, a piece saying, the person the Metropolitan Police were looking for revealed Maria, her same teacher. And in that news article, they talk about who I am, who my parents are. They put, they put information about my father where he works and who is the value of the home that he lives in, where he lives, where I was brought up. Actually, everything they could dig up about us. And I pick up my kids and I go home, I think it's over. The police Dwi'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio'r gweithio wedi'n gweithio'r gweithio wedi'n gweithio wedi'n gweithio wedi'n gweithio wedi'n gweithio wedi'n gweithio wedi'n gweithio wedi'n gweith Mae'r fawr yn fawr yn fawr yn fawr yn fawr yn fawr yn fawr yn fawr yn fawr yn fawr yn fawr yn fawr yn Mae'n i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'n gweith i'n gweithio i'n gweithio i'n gweithio i'n gweithio i'n gweithio i'n gweithio i'n Mae'r ffwrs, mae'n ffwrs, mae'r ffwrs, mae'r ffwrs, mae'r ffwrs, mae'r ffwrs, mae'r ffwrs, mae'r o'r i'n gweithio'r teito sy'n gweithio'r teito sy'n gweithio'r teito sy'n gweithio'r teito sy'n gweithio'r teito. O'r teito sy'n gweithio'r teito sy'n gweithio'r teito sy'n gweithio'r teitaith. Mae'n gweithio'r hwn yn gwaithio, mae'n gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r g o'r i'n gweithio bod i'n gweithio bod yn yw i'n gweithio bod yn gweithio bod yn gweithio bod yn gweithio bod yn gwe a i'r gweithio'r ymw i'r ymw i'r ymw i'r ymw i'r ymw i'r ymw i'r ymw i' Inau'r gweithio'r gweithio sy'n gweithio'r gweithio i'r gweithio i'r gweithio i'r gweithio i' ni'n gallu'r ymw'r ymredi'n ymw'r ymdw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r ymw'r o'r ymdyn am ymddiad mewn i'r ymddiad ar ymddiad mewn i'r nhw ymddiad amddiad mewn i'r ymddiad mewn i'r ymddiad mewn i'r ymddiad mewn i'r ymddiad mewn. ymddiad mewn i'r ymddiad mewn i'r ymddiad mewn i'r ymddiad mewn. I'r ymddiad mewn i'r ymddiad mewn i'r ymddiad mewn i'r ymddiad mewn i'r ymddiad. We are terrified of the police, we don't trust them, he makes a quick call to me and he says the police are outside hands up. I have a quick look through and don't hear there he is outside. How did they know we were there? Are they watching? How did they within 20 minutes of me coming home packing a few bits of the kids, packing a few bits of you know things that I need and want and the police have turned about side. What I think has happened, again we asked we emailed and said you know why you hit no response, I think what has happened is that they wanted to speak with me and they did not say what they wanted to speak to me about. They spoke to my husband, they would not speak to him about what they wanted to speak to me about. They just said where's your wife, where's your wife, where's your wife, where's your she's out right now, where was she, don't know, don't know, give some big answers. I don't know why they were there, I don't know how they got there but an idea that I have is that they spoke to my neighbours, they knocked on the doors of my neighbours and said the police is looking for them when they come home, here's my card, here's my name, call us and we suspect that the neighbours have done that. They've left a card for the neighbours potentially, nothing for me who they're actually looking for, no card for me to say call me, we're looking for you it's to do with this zero. We start getting shung by the neighbours, the school community is shunning us, I've eventually taken my son back to school when it's deemed safe to do so and finding the whole process, humiliating, degrading and terrifying. And then legally there's silence for six months, nothing from the police. We decide to move, I've at this point very quickly lost my job, I think that's well known as well, I've lost my job. We pick up home and we leave, we're fed up with the neighbours, we're not really cracking on with where we are now, might have lived it for 10 years, no issues. But this is all it's taken and our lives are upside down, we move, we pick up and we move home. I've discovered that I'm expecting baby number three, so I mean it's a one, it's a blessing, it's a wonderful, but the timing was. I know, I can sympathise, we had our first one this year and life hasn't been the same. When you have a baby number three, your first one is only 13 months old and you think, you made the one's only 13 months old, you think, oh my god, but I've got this police case, we're moving, I'm pregnant. We start getting in touch with the police saying, little update, she's pregnant, we've had nothing from the police. We don't think this is in the public interest, there seems to be no fallout socially from this either in society. So we plead with them to drop the case and NFA me if they're going to, can we do that earlier rather than later, so that I can just relax now. And I don't want anything happening to my pregnancy, everybody's well-known or documented that extreme stress is very, very, very harmful, very dangerous to your pregnancy. And I was under extreme prolonged stress, police are not responding, they're just not cooperating. Not responding. Mind if I don't cooperate with the police, I'm going to be arrested. They're just not cooperating. Just give us an email back. So May 11th is the cutoff period. If they don't charge me by May 11th, they cannot charge me now. Okay. May 10th, I find out I've been charged by journalist. So there's a journalist who's a wonderful friend now with mine. She's working for Al Jazeera and they're doing a piece about the coconut placard and that the police are investigating at that point. She's emailed the back-to-potent police asking for a comment. Chris Humphries replies to her, "Chris Humphries is the person who put up my picture and wrote that tweet saying the police were looking for me." Under Harry's place, I'm put up that picture. He's also brought to trial to testify as well for this date. Chris Humphries emails this journalist back saying, "She's now been charged and gives up all the details. My personal details." He emails her. This journalist, my court-state appearance, the crime that I've been charged with. I have no knowledge of any of this. And he also threatens her with contempt if she goes ahead with the journalist piece. Anyway, Al Jazeera, their own lawyers, and they crack on with what they need to do. The piece goes ahead. Obit has been changed now because I've been charged. And she tells me I have no knowledge. I ring my lawyers and they say, "It's come through. You've been charged." Also, but they've got, it's the end. It's the deadline. And they say the police say, "We've notified you via postal requisition." To this day, I have never received anything in the post that I've been charged with a crime. My official notice that I've been charged was what the journalist told me. Nothing was ever received. And they said that they sent it on the 10th. How would I have known by the 10th? How would I have even known by the 11th unit to give a time to be received? Mind you, it's never been received. I'm going to go ahead and just say they're lying. They're lying. They're just that they're lying. I've been charged. The date for my hearing is the 26th of June. The 26th of June is National Coconut Day. Wow, can we say, yeah. I mean, okay. I'm at that point, six months pregnant, Keja advocating for me. The doing videos that get me loyal to everything is going great. We go to court and there's a massive rally outside. Maybe even 100 people outside protesting outside Westminster Elementary School. Coconut's are out, okay. Like real live coconuts. And Cage actually notified the police beforehand that they're going to do this protest. And they say that they want to use a remodeled version of my coconut placard. And they ask if it's okay to do that. So they hold the coconut placard with a notice saying for the attention of the police, FOA. This is satire. That's all it says, okay. They ask the police is that going to be okay. The police say they're not sure maybe, maybe not. They don't say anything. They hold the placards outside for a couple of hours. And once more and more people tend and media start turning up, the police bring up vans and start arresting Cage members. Five of them for holding the placard. And before the arrest, they warned them and said you need to put these placards down. Because they're offensive. They're that and the other. And Cage will get rid of the placards. They put them down. They've followed police orders. They put the placards away. The police come back a little while later say actually we're going to arrest you all anyway. But why? You've given a warning that something or doing in public is not okay. The person has stopped doing it. You've come back and arrested them anyway. So they've all been arrested and they're all facing the same charges me. A sixth Cage member is on the mic and she says to the chanting and they have all sorts of slogans at the same. And she says coconut coconut you can't hide we charge you with genocide arrested. Okay. That happens. It seems to be that they are putting on a show in front of the media. They put on gloves. It's more documented. You'll see on social media and they're picking up coconuts that people have bought in solidarity and just mocking the whole case actually. And they put them in all evidence bars and take them away and then police fans. This is the metropolitan police. One of the pillars of our society. This is where we're at. Okay. Well, you don't responding to emails or turning up to people's houses in the middle of the night. You're not saying why you're there. You've got a resting fruit. Okay. You're resting people that have complied. Okay. These people let asked you beforehand if they could bring these placards. You lulled them into a false insecurity by saying maybe, maybe not. Okay. We don't know if it's going to be okay. Mind you the placard hasn't even gone on trial yet. It hasn't been deemed to be crime yet. You're treating everybody like criminals and arresting them. So a court date is set. I say, okay, you set the court date for 11th, 12th of September, I'm going to be nine months pregnant by then. The state does not care. So exactly nine months pregnant, I go to trial and we have amazing trial. And I was acquitted. I need to really, really highlight how important solidarity is. Because the truth is, in the first 24 hours, I really thought I'd done something racist. And I couldn't believe it. They had me in the first 24 hours, I was really what they were saying about me. And I thought, oh my god, all these white people are offended. I didn't even have them in my mind when I made the placard. This is introsimunal banter and criticism. This is between brown people. And I think this is one of the things that's highlighted is that when you live in white society and you don't send to white perspectives, you know, it can come back to bite you really fast. But that's the institutional racism that we live in. Is that why did you not think about my white feelings and how I as a white person might feel about what you said to this brown person? I didn't even send to them. I didn't even consider them. And the solidarity and support that I had from strangers, the online community, the way that they came in and absolutely blew the police apart for this case. And some of the tweets were so funny in my darkest moments. They were making me really giggle. But the solidarity between campaigners, activists, and then just the layperson from strangers is the thing that kept me going. Because if I had done something and I wasn't getting back to supported by anybody, I think I would have called into a hole and died. My soul would have left my body at that point because nobody's supporting me. Quick pause for a moment. I just want to share something with you. I make all of these videos alone from finding the guests doing the reading, preparing the questions, recording, editing. I think you get the picture. And as you can imagine, it's very time-consuming and quite taxing. So if you enjoy the work and want to help me keep it going, consider becoming a YouTube member or joining our Patreon. You will get early or ad free access, plus some extra perks. And it genuinely helps support the growth of the channel. Hopefully one day I'll be able to afford some support. That would honestly be really nice. Someone who could organize the guests or someone who could help build our advertising wing, considering we average about 5 million reach across our platform. However, I'm going off on a tangent. And to be quite honest, I never know quite how to promote my own work. So I'll just say this. If you want to support what I'm doing, drawing Patreon, or become a channel member genuinely helps. Our goal is to reach around 100 members on each to keep the channel sustainable. Anyway, let's get back to the discussion. I guess this brings me on nicely. There was a few questions that got sent in by some of the community yesterday. And these like answer them as deep as long as you wish to. Some of them I think are quite pointed. So apologies if it comes across like that. So the first one is if you could go back knowing everything that's happened obviously since, would you still make that placard or would you change something? The only thing I would change is I would add more faces to it. Tricia. Is there anyone in particular who you would add to it? At the minute right now, I'm Shabana Mahmoud. She can get on there. Pretty can tell she should have been added. They can get on that palm tree. I don't think there's anyone that I would have said no to you. So Tricia, you're fine. When you drew Sunak and Brawaman as coconuts under a palm tree, what was the message you were trying to get across? Yeah, I think I might cover this. But what I was trying to say is that when we have brown faces in high places, you've got the top job in the country. You are Prime Minister and you are Home Secretary. I don't expect favours from you because we're brown. I don't expect that. What I expected was that you would bring the communities that you represent and that you are, by your own nature, represent. You would bring them in line with our white peers. We are police and we are critiqued and we are favoured the same way we want to go. quality. We don't want you to pick on us, target us, criminalize us, and endanger us, and harm us the way the racist white institutions already do. We just wanted, when we see you up there, to bring us on par with the with white society. That's what we were expecting. We weren't expecting favors. No. But what they have done with their racist policies and their very dangerous racist rhetoric is that they whipped up their race riots, which had been just months before my trial. And that's that's really just a combination of things that they said and did and the media and they whipped it up, created this pylon and you've got people literally burning down hotels that they think my garden, dragging black and brown people out of cars and battering them. They've done that and there needs to be an accountability for that. And so I was calling them out. I was calling them up for their racism. Last one from the community questions is if a white, and I think also this question is what's the word? I personally think it's not a good faith question because of the way it's constructed, but I will let you deal with that. Because I also just think that as soon as you change the context, everything else changes with it. Like it's almost it doesn't it doesn't quite compare it in my brain, but anyway, if a white far right protestor used the word coconut against sedicone, for instance, would you treat that as satire or racism and how does I guess the context or the intent change the meaning? It doesn't it doesn't make sense. That's exactly why I thought why would a far right person call sedicone or any brown person a coconut? Yeah, it doesn't hold the currency. If he's far right, and this brown person is a coconut, well then they're aligned. Actually, they'll be in bed with each other. Yep. And therefore there's no satire then there is there. And actually that's your that's your brotherhood, okay? Because you're the same. And that really is because it's political. It has political meaning. It's not about race. And so the question doesn't even make sense, to be very honest with you, but but the other thing I want to say is that this isn't language for white people. You can have an argument with a white colleague or a white neighbor or anybody, and they can call you every name under the sun, but they will never call you a coconut. Because it doesn't pertain to them, and it's not their language, but they don't understand it. And it doesn't it will never make sense for them to call me you anybody a coconut. It doesn't make sense. It can never be used in that regard. And it isn't used in that regard. So the question is invalid, but but that criticism from white from a white person, kind of white person, called another person, brown person coconut. It doesn't even make sense. That's why they never do it. Yep. And it never has been used either. So there's even a precedent. Yeah, yeah. This is and this is brown, black and brown language. And so white institutionally by their own reports and their own admissions, institution racist institutions cannot objectively police our language. They give it they're providing no cultural sensitivity, no background, no unsounding. And if they do try to do that, what they try to is center themselves as victims in a place where they're not the victim at all. My last two questions I promise. Um, this one is this one isn't a community one. These are these are actually what I had thought about prior to this recording, which is what is the one thing that you wish people understood about what you went through the trial, everything from placard up until today that you feel has been lost in the headlines or the media coverage. Um, Palestine. The thing that I think has that that I really want to highlight is not what I went through personally, not my pregnancy, not my job, not my kids. Um, it's Palestine. It's that our government is supporting funding, um, a, a genocide in Palestine. Today it's Palestine in the past. It's been many other nations in the future. We many more too. Okay. Our country has a history of brutal state violence against black and brown communities at home and abroad and their hypocrisy, their racism, their bias, their prejudice, um, the media's double standard as well in the entire reporting of this as well. I think that it needs to be really centered when I talk about my trial and my case. Number one, and number two is the actions of the police because the actions of the police, the actions of the CPS, some of the things that came out at trial are not well reported. And those are the things that I think have been lost. So, um, and I'll give you an example. The police responding to the tweet within six minutes, the police coming to my house, the fact that the CPS accepted this case and took it to trial where there were no victims, there was no complainant understood. There was no experts willing to come to trial and testify for the state against me that coconut was racist in any way. And the one exit, they wouldn't touch it, they wouldn't even respond to the police. There was one expert, Gahendi Andrews, who did respond to the police, and he wrote a lengthy email saying this is not a hate crime. In fact, this is satire and this is really important critical critique, um, political critique, and he urged the CPS to drop the case and the CPS dismissed it because it didn't align with their agenda. So, the things that I really want to highlight is Palestine, the police, the court system, and the agendas that they have pursued when they prosecuted me. My last question, and it kind of ties into what we've just discussed, which is you have gone through something extremely unique in the way the way circumstance brought you to that, brought you into the eyes of the police and then the way that they've handled everything. I think there are very few people in this world who will ever be able to say that they went through something similar to yourself. However, I think at the same time, yes, you can treat it as an anomaly, but I think it's also a warning in a sense, especially to people of color. So, where I'm trying to go with this is from what you've experienced, from everything that you've gone through, what is your advice to other people of color? This one's quite close to my heart. I think that the state tried to make an example out of me, and I would urge our community to understand the lessons that have been learned here. Nagel writes, always defend the oppressed, always speak out against injustice. Today, it's an injustice against that person. Tomorrow, it will be you. Your silence doesn't save you. Your silence won't protect you. Your silence won't work in your favour when they come for you, and that every contribution matters, whether it's in classrooms as a teacher or in the workplace or what you teach your children or what you discuss with your friends, even your conversations, every little bit, every little contribution matters. So, go to the protest. Don't be afraid to say what you need to say. Do it with your head held high, and know that even if it does come at a personal cost, there is an entire community absolutely valid, ready and engaged to support you, as they did with me legally, financially, and in any moral support that I needed at that time. The community is very, very strong, very, very powerful, and there's strength in it, so please always stand up for the oppressed and stand up for justice, no matter what. Thank you. This is something that we've been trying to organise for a couple of weeks. I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for even just giving me the light of day, but obviously also to do this, I've really enjoyed it. I think there's so much more we could talk about, but we've already been talking for like 70 minutes. So, I don't want to thank you for having me, and thank you for giving me a voice and a bit of a platform and space to talk about what happened with my trial and its further applications, and just super wonderful to talk to us also. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for watching. If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure to subscribe, drop a comment, and share this with someone who you think would appreciate it. It helps the channel grow more than you think, and before you go, not to drop another Dr. Dre pun, but the next episodes are going to be big ones. They might not necessarily come out in this order, but we have a back catalog of a number of podcasts that I need to edit, including podcasts with Professor Erlin and Nesbyt, a podcast with Guy Bowman, regarding the escape from epinol. It will be a four-part series, which I need to get around to editing. We also have Sunzoo in the West with academic Peter Lodge from the US. Again, it is a fascinating podcast. For instance, Sunzoo isn't even one person, but again, that will all come clear in the podcast. But I also have a four-part series with Ayers Gurdard and GSN that we recorded, I think, now two years ago regarding who killed Junkilla. Again, I need to edit it. On top of that, I have a number of podcasts that are going to be recorded in the next few weeks, weeks, even, with the success of the podcast regarding Gallipoli with Peter Stanley, we're now going to do a number of podcasts with a number of academics regarding the first one. and second world war battles that Indian soldiers or Indian army soldiers were involved in. We're going to be doing a couple from the first world war that we were recording in January and hopefully sharing with you guys soon. So again, pardon the rambled, but if any of that sounds like interest to you, then please make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on the next upload. Otherwise, in that we're trying to hit 20,000 subscribers as soon as possible. So please subscribe, share this with anyone else who you think can help and I will see you in the next one.