Dyeing to make her point
ON MARCH 12 Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi was due to appear before City of London magistrates, charged with “causing harassment, alarm and distress” under the Public Order Act. But on the day before, her solicitor received a fax that said the CPS had decided to “discontinue” the charge “because a prosecution is not needed in the public interest”.
So why, she asks, had they brought the case in the first place? NUJ life member Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, who worked for Reuters for 20 years, is a vociferous member of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, in which capacity she frequently turns out to demonstrate.
In June last year she was in Central London watching a parade to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel and she was a counter-demonstrator. “I and a friend chose a silent, visual form of action,” she says, “to highlight the thousands of neglected Palestinian deaths over the past six decades.
“We had a placard saying ‘Palestinian blood on Israeli hands’, and I had my hands and T-shirt dyed red with food colouring. Within minutes we were attacked by Israel supporters, one of whom threatened to slit my throat. The police, rather than defending our right to freedom of expression, arrested us. We were photographed, finger-printed, DNA-tested and held in cells at Charing Cross police station for four hours.”
Now with the charge suddenly dropped, she is considering legal action against the police for wrongful arrest. Why is it all going so horribly wrong for London’s coppers just trying to keep the peace?