{"id":979,"date":"2026-07-15T17:38:56","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T17:38:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=979"},"modified":"2026-07-15T17:38:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T17:38:56","slug":"latest-case-of-palestine-exception-to-free-speech-is-golden-gate-defendants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=979","title":{"rendered":"Latest Case of \u201cPalestine Exception\u201d to Free Speech Is \u201cGolden Gate Defendants\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Read more Wisconsin Commission Finds Musk Likely Broke Law in Handing Out Checks to Voters<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Jury deliberations in the case of a group of San Francisco protesters dubbed the \u201cGolden Gate Defendants\u201d resulted in multiple misdemeanor convictions on July 2, 2026. The case stems from an organized action that took place April 15, 2024, in protest of the U.S.-enabled Israeli genocide in Gaza. Twenty-six people were initially arrested for blocking traffic on San Francisco\u2019s Golden Gate Bridge and jailed for more than 48 hours. After a majority of the 1,144 combined charges were dropped, seven people went to trial.<\/p>\n

In spite of being found guilty of multiple misdemeanors, the Golden Gate Defendants view the outcome as a victory. Tori Porell, senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal, who has been supporting the defendants, said San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins \u201cfailed to secure convictions on the most serious charges\u201d of felony conspiracy. Jury members were deadlocked on the felony charges that could have resulted in 15-year prison sentences.<\/p>\n

Still, defendants and their allies have spent two years enmeshed in the stress of a long-drawn-out trial. Now, those charged and convicted await a sentencing hearing in August.<\/p>\n

The decision to bring such a wide array of charges in relation to a protest action was unusual. Porell called it \u201ca classic case of over-prosecution, meant to stifle dissent and scare people away from speaking out against the United States and Israeli-backed genocide of Palestinians.\u201d During the trial, DA Jenkins even attempted to prevent Golden Gate Defendants and their supporters from wearing keffiyehs \u2014 a symbol of solidarity with Palestinians. \u201cThe judge, fortunately, knows the First Amendment and did not proceed with that request,\u201d Porell said.<\/p>\n

Sara Cantor, one of the defendants, was quoted in a press release as saying that the goal of the protest was \u201cto show that the status quo cannot continue while our government funds genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Porell explained that Cantor and her fellow activists are using their serious predicament to continue raising awareness of the genocide. \u201cThese defendants have bravely showed up and centered Palestine throughout this trial, showing that even under this aggressive prosecution, they won\u2019t be silenced, and they won\u2019t be scared away from speaking up against a genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the actions of April 15, 2024, ought to have been considered protected speech under the First Amendment, DA Jenkins justified the harsh charges her office brought against the activists. She cited \u201cthe danger \u2026 to people who are on the bridge, who might be suffering medical emergencies, who might have significant things that they\u2019re trying to get to.\u201d Jenkins went on to suggest that in the event of an earthquake, people trapped on a bridge would have their lives endangered by such an act of civil disobedience.<\/p>\n

What the DA did not say is that law enforcement had the ability to let traffic through but chose to let the bridge remain completely blocked. \u201cThe protesters had a plan to allow a lane of traffic for emergency vehicles to pass,\u201d but it was the police \u201cwho did not open that channel,\u201d Porell said. \u201cThe police also blocked the bridge traffic in the opposite direction, which the protesters did not do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreover, there were several comparable protests blocking traffic on San Francisco\u2019s Golden Gate Bridge in the past, including an AIDS-related protest in 1989, and, more recently, a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020. \u201cThose<\/em> protesters were not treated anywhere near as harshly as these<\/em> protesters who were speaking up for Palestine were treated,\u201d said Porell. The only conclusion that can be drawn, according to Porell, is that the Golden Gate Defendants \u201cwere targeted because of the content of their speech and what they were speaking up about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Trump Rejects Pause on ICE Traffic Stops After Fatal July Shootings<\/a><\/p>\n

Actions in support of Palestinians have long been anathema in the United States, a phenomenon Porell and others describe as \u201cthe Palestine exception to free speech.\u201d She viewed the case of the Golden Gate Defendants as \u201cjust one of many examples we\u2019ve seen in the last several years of attempts to chill speech around Palestine.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time as activists blocked the Golden Gate Bridge to protest the Gaza genocide in Spring 2024, students across the country were occupying college campuses, decrying the horrors of the genocide and demanding their administrations divest from Israel. Countless numbers of students were harshly penalized for their activism, including being suspended, expelled, or having their degrees revoked.<\/p>\n

A year later, the advent of the second Trump administration saw a greater escalation in the attacks on free speech when outspoken Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil became the highest-profile victim of both the \u201cPalestine exception\u201d and Donald Trump\u2019s war on immigrants. Federal immigration authorities revoked Khalil\u2019s student visa and arrested him in Spring 2025.<\/p>\n

Immigrants in the U.S. are facing a similar sort of dehumanization to Palestinians, and those who defend one or both groups might pay an extraordinarily high cost for their activism today. The charges in the Golden Gate Defendants\u2019 case came soon after decades-long sentences were announced in the federal case against eight people arrested in connection the protest of an immigration jail in North Texas. The prosecution of the Prairieland Defendants, as they are called, was the first to be brought under Trump\u2019s executive order proclaiming \u201cAntifa\u201d as a terrorist organization.<\/p>\n

DA Jenkins, according to Porell, \u201cis taking a page out of the Trump administration\u2019s playbook by overcharging and over-prosecuting a classic act of civil disobedience. This is exactly what we\u2019re seeing the Trump administration doing on an even more horrendous scale with the Prairieland prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lydia Koza, whose wife Autumn Hill is a Prairieland Defendant sentenced to 50 years in prison, said, \u201cThis is a shocking escalation, and at the same time, the trajectory as to how we got here is very sadly predictable.\u201d Koza likened the harsh sentences of the Prairieland Defendants to what Black activists and their allies dealt with during the civil rights movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just abominable to me that the U.S. government wants to take this amazing, marvelous, sweet young woman\u2019s life away from her entirely, that they want to put her in a box for the rest of her life,\u201d said Koza of her wife, Autumn.<\/p>\n

Just as racial justice activists in the 1950s risked their lives to defend civil rights and human rights, their modern-day counterparts have continued showing up, uncowed in the face of draconian government responses.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite all of this repression that we\u2019ve seen increase over the last few years, people are not silent,\u201d said Porell. \u201cPeople are continuing to speak up. More and more and more people every day are speaking up about Palestine and raising awareness about our government\u2019s complicity in an ongoing genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Senators Block Pentagon Bill Over Iran War and US-Israeli Military Integration<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The \u201cGolden Gate Defendants\u201d have spent two years enmeshed in a drawn-out trial and now await sentencing in August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nLatest Case of \u201cPalestine Exception\u201d to Free Speech Is \u201cGolden Gate Defendants\u201d - Smart Moving Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=979\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Latest Case of \u201cPalestine Exception\u201d to Free Speech Is \u201cGolden Gate Defendants\u201d - 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