Participating in a demonstration has its risks. Demonstrators may get hurt when they are dispersed by police or get arrested.

In Berlin, Germany, pro-Palestinian protesters gathering on Sunday were dispersed. Officers chased one protester carrying a Palestinian flag until they caught him. Witnesses and netizens who saw the video of the arrest of the 10-year-old protester were outraged and criticized the police and the government.

Another controversial arrest of a peaceful protester led to the filing of racial charges against her.

Mother and teacher Marieha Hussain joined a pro-Palestinian demonstration in central London on 11 November 2023. The placard she was carrying caught so much attention, with a photo of it posted on social media going viral for getting four million views.

The Metropolitan Police sought her in an apparent response to complaints of an alleged racial insult by Hussain. She voluntarily explained her side to the police but her statement and the media frenzy over the case cost the protester her job at a secondary school and the online harassment of her family in the following months.

Prosecutors then belatedly filed charges of racially aggravated public order offense against her in May. The next month, a pregnant Hussain went to court to plead not guilty to the accusation.

The trial was held on 12 and 13 September at the Westminster Magistrates Court. Prosecutor Jonathan Bryan said that Hussain had crossed the line from legitimate political expression to racial insult, violating the law against hate speech, according to BBC.

Hussain argued that the image on her placard was a form of political critique against what she said were “politicians in high office who perpetuate and push racist policies,” BBC quoted her as saying.

Academic experts also testified in her defense.

She won the case as District Judge Vanessa Lloyd ruled that the placard — which showed the cutout faces of former prime minister Rishi Sunak and ex-home secretary Suella Braverman among fallen coconuts under a coconut tree — was “part of the genre of political satire” and that the prosecution failed to prove that it was criminally and racially abusive,” according to BBC.

Hussain emerged from the courtroom victorious over what she called the weaponization of laws to target members of ethnic minorities like her.