(Los Angeles Times) Nicole Santa Cruz - The Orange County, Calif., district attorney's office charged 11 students on Friday with conspiring to disrupt a meeting and speech at UC Irvine on Feb. 8, 2010, by Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren. In a statement, Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas said charges were filed because of an "organized attempt to squelch the speaker." He said the students "meant to stop this speech and stop anyone else from hearing his ideas, and they did so by disrupting a lawful meeting." "We cannot tolerate a preplanned violation of the law, even if the crime takes place on a school campus and even if the defendants are college students. In our democratic society, we cannot tolerate a deliberate, organized, repetitive and collective effort to significantly disrupt a speaker who hundreds assembled to hear."
2011-02-08 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive