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Police in Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom, refused to arrest a man who sent Nazi swastikas to Jewish students, the Telegraph reported on Saturday.
The suspect sent an image of the Star of David mixed with the Nazi swastika on social media to the Union of Jewish Students with the caption “The irony of becoming what you once hated.”
The offender wrote there was “nothing endangering Jewish students” and claimed that the UJS was “exploiting them to push pro-genocide propaganda and deflect Israel’s responsibility for murdering 40,000 civilians”.
Still, the Cambridgeshire police force deemed the antisemitic act not offensive enough to be a crime.
The Telegraph reported that the incident was labeled as a non-crime hate incident (NCHI).
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators in London, 5 October 2024 (credit: SCREENSHOT/X)
According to Alex Hearn, co-director of Labour Against Anti-Semitism, this isn’t the first antisemitic incident against the UJS that was reported to the Cambridgeshire police. In October, a man used X/Twitter to send offensive messages to him and the Jewish students.
Similarly, this incident was labeled as non-criminal. An officer's emailed response read that according to UK law, a digital message had to be “grossly offensive … a very high legal threshold to pass.”
Hearn responded, saying, “I fail to see how posting the image of race-hate swastika at Jews is not grossly offensive, particularly when the Met Police are arresting people for holding exactly that image," the Telegraph quoted.
The officer claimed he wasn't sure how "everybody would feel about that sign."
The suspect sent an image of the Star of David mixed with the Nazi swastika on social media to the Union of Jewish Students with the caption “The irony of becoming what you once hated.”
The offender wrote there was “nothing endangering Jewish students” and claimed that the UJS was “exploiting them to push pro-genocide propaganda and deflect Israel’s responsibility for murdering 40,000 civilians”.
Still, the Cambridgeshire police force deemed the antisemitic act not offensive enough to be a crime.
The Telegraph reported that the incident was labeled as a non-crime hate incident (NCHI).
According to Alex Hearn, co-director of Labour Against Anti-Semitism, this isn’t the first antisemitic incident against the UJS that was reported to the Cambridgeshire police. In October, a man used X/Twitter to send offensive messages to him and the Jewish students.
Similarly, this incident was labeled as non-criminal. An officer's emailed response read that according to UK law, a digital message had to be “grossly offensive … a very high legal threshold to pass.”
Hearn responded, saying, “I fail to see how posting the image of race-hate swastika at Jews is not grossly offensive, particularly when the Met Police are arresting people for holding exactly that image," the Telegraph quoted.
UK antisemitism
In April, a protester carrying a swastika sign was arrested at a Pro-Palestinian march in London on Saturday, but the outrage was sparked by a video in which a Metropolitan Police officer told a pro-Israel counter-protester that that the swastika sign had to be taken in context.The officer claimed he wasn't sure how "everybody would feel about that sign."
