Police deem swastika intertwined with Star of David not ‘offensive’ enough to be a crime
Police decided to not prosecute a man who sent a design of the Star of David intertwined with the Nazi swastika to a Jewish students’ union.
Cambridgeshire Constabulary claimed the image sent to the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) was not “grossly offensive” and so could not be considered a crime, The Telegraph has reported.
Instead, the incident was classed as a non-crime hate incident (NCHI).
Essex Police’s investigation of respected journalist Allison Pearson has highlighted the differing ways law enforcement officers implement hate laws and how NCHIs are applied.
Last month, co-director of Labour Against Anti-Semitism Alex Hearn informed the Cambridgeshire police force that a man had sent offensive messages to him, as well as to the Union of Jewish Students.
After the UJS had posted a statement online regarding the rise of anti-Semitic behaviour, a man responded with the image of a swastika woven inside the Star of David.
He captioned the image: “The irony of becoming what you once hated.”
Claiming that there was “nothing endangering Jewish students, he said that the UJS was “exploiting them to push pro-genocide propaganda and deflect Israel’s responsibility for murdering 40,000 civilians”.
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When Hearn, 49, reported the social media post to the police, he was subsequently informed that, although there was “no doubt the comments and pictures of this report are offensive”, it was not a criminal offence.
They told him that, under the Malicious Communications Act, a digital message must be “grossly offensive…a very high legal threshold to pass”.
Adding that “no further relevant action” would be taken, they said: “As well as this, there is a balance to strike in relation to issues around Article 10 of the Human Rights Act which protects people’s freedom of expression. It allows people to say things ‘that offend, shock or disturb the state or any section of the population’.”
In response, Hearn wrote: “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.”
Police have arrested a number of individuals across the country after they held up images of similar edited photos of swastikas and the Star of David since October 7 2023.
Hearn said: “This man has been posting swastikas and making Nazi comparisons at Jewish organisations and individuals including myself and the Chief Rabbi.
“One was even sent in reply to a post mourning a Holocaust survivor who passed away. His attacks often appear to be triggered by complaints about the huge rise in hate crimes, which government statistics say have doubled against Jews in the last year.
“This abuse which uses Holocaust-based symbols and tropes to taunt Jews for a second time, is not only designed to cause maximum distress but also to silence people speaking up about anti-Jewish racism.
“I hoped that Cambridgeshire police would treat this matter with the seriousness it deserves. However, they have ruled that it is not ‘grossly offensive’.
“If posting a swastika, the symbol of evil and the Holocaust, at Jews is not grossly offensive, then nothing is. Particularly when intertwined with the symbol of Judaism to compare Jews with Nazis, legitimising more attacks.”