A 20-YEAR-OLD activist is due in court next week after a pro-Israel campaigner demanded that police take action after hearing her chant “intifada” and “river to the sea” at a Palestine solidarity rally.

Sussex University student Maya Szerszen, of the Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (FRFI) group in Brighton, was charged after Heidi Bachram launched a campaign along with other members of Sussex Friends of Israel.

Ms Bachram, who regularly criticises pro-Palestine activism on X and her Substack page, shared a video of police refusing to arrest Ms Szerszen while she was addressing at a Palestine solidarity rally in Brighton on February 28.

She shared a video of police officers telling her “they are free to protest” during the demonstration. 

In it, Ms Bachram complained that the demonstrators were chanting “victory to the intifada,” saying this upset her as relatives of her had been “killed in the intifada” and alleging that chants of “resistance is justified” express support for “terrorism.”

Later, in a Substack post titled Redemption in Brighton, she shared a police appeal for information on an alleged racially aggravated public order offence during the rally with Ms Szerszen’s photo.

In a statement, Brighton FRFI said that a rally will be held outside Brighton’s main railway station at noon next Thursday, ahead of Ms Szerszen’s appearance at the city’s magistrates’ court.

Ms Szerszen was charged on July 31 with two alleged public order offences involving the racially aggravated use of threatening behaviour within hearing of a person likely to have been caused distress.

She said: “Intifada is a completely acceptable and internationally recognised way of describing the legitimate uprising of the Palestinian people against oppression.”

Ms Szerszen added that officers had questioned her on suspicion of offences involving an attempt to incite racial hatred during her arrest on March 14, which could only be tried by a jury at a crown court.

The Sussex Police decision to go with summary-only charges meant “the British state is running scared of juries which have repeatedly failed to convict pro-Palestine protesters in the recent period,” she added.

An End Repression in Brighton campaign spokesperson said: “This is a blatant attack on our rights to free speech and to protest,” adding that such action was “a staple of the current Labour government, which has worked tirelessly to silence and smother the Palestinian movement in Britain.”