UK: Saudi man who claims to be a woman says he didn’t understand his own sign, ‘Israel burn in hell’

If a man from Saudi Arabia can move to Britain and start claiming he is a woman named Laura Davis, he can also claim not to have understood his own protest sign. He might have reasoned that if British authorities so readily believed his first claim, he could easily get away with another, smaller one.

“Trans refugee, 22, who waved sign calling for Israel to ‘burn in hell’ at London pro-Palestinian protest is fined £100 – as she claims she didn’t understand what it said,” by Jon Brady, Daily Mail, December 2, 2023:

A trans refugee from Saudi Arabia who waved a sign at a pro-Palestine rally.calling for Israel to ‘burn in hell’ found the placard at a bus stop and didn’t understand it, a court heard.

Laura Davis, 22, pleaded guilty through an Arabic interpreter to a charge of having caused racially, religiously aggravated harassment, alarm or distress by words or writing when she appeared at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday.

Davis, of Barnet, north London, was charged after being spotted with the sign, which read ‘FREE PALESTINE!! ISRA*L BURN IN HELL’ at a protest in central London on October 28.

The sign was likely to cause ‘harassment alarm or distress’ and the offence was ‘racially aggravated’, the court was told – but lawyers for the Saudi woman said she didn’t understand its meaning and found it on her way to the rally.

Nicholas Tarry, chairman of the magistrates’ bench, told Davis the message on the placard ‘is not an appropriate thing to be waving; it’s violent language about another country and it is not allowed’.

The court heard Davis fled her home in Saudi Arabia in December 2021 because she was not accepted as a transgender person. She was granted asylum in the summer.

Met Police officers stopped her on Regent Street on the evening of October 28 after spotting the sign on CCTV.

Mr Tarry, who ordered her to pay a total of £225 including £100 fine, £40 victim surcharge and £85 costs, told Davis: ‘You have come to this country for tolerance. You deserve tolerance and other people do as well.

‘You must show other people the tolerance you expect them to show you. Do you understand?’

Davis nodded quietly as she stood in the dock….

Speaking in mitigation, defence lawyer Nicola White said Davis attended the rally ‘with good intentions’ but, in ‘an impulsive action’, carried the sign away after finding it at the bus stop.

Davis did not mean to offend anyone, Ms White said, adding that she has shown remorse and made an early guilty plea.

She added that the protester did not seek clarification about the sign’s meaning from someone who could help her understand it.

Ms White said: ‘She has expressed deep remorse and regret in that moment in picking up that sign that she did not seek clarification from another Arabic-speaking member of the protest (about its meaning).’

She added: ‘She is a member of the transgender community and due to the views in Saudi Arabia, she had no choice but to flee. She has been abandoned by her family because of the way she lives.’…