Student Facing Charges Over Tea Towel Joke About Pro-Palestine Activist
A Royal Holloway student is facing possible hate crime charges after making a joke comparing a pro-Palestine activist’s headscarf to a tea towel in a case the student says should “scare everybody”. The Telegraph has the story.
Brodie Mitchell, a 20 year-old student at Royal Holloway, University of London, has been told that police have submitted a file to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), seeking advice over possible charges for a hate crime.
The case has led to a free speech row and calls for the CPS to drop the inquiry.
Mitchell, who describes himself as a non-Jewish Zionist, became involved in the confrontation at Royal Holloway’s freshers’ fair last September, after Huda El-Jamal, the President of the Friends of Palestine Society, allegedly described him as a “wannabe Jew” and asked why he was not wearing a Jewish yarmulke or kippah.
He responded by telling El-Jamal: “You’re wearing a tea towel on your head,” referring to her keffiyeh scarf. The scarf is a symbol of the Palestinian cause.
Mitchell was suspended from the university the next day for the duration of a nine-week investigation by Royal Holloway “for alleged conduct that could be considered hate speech”.
He is now taking the university to court over its decision to temporarily suspend him from his studies.
Huda El-Jamal allegedly described Mr Mitchell as a “wannabe Jew”
He will tell a three-day trial at the High Court, set to take place in June, that the disciplinary action taken by the university robbed him of the equivalent of seven weeks of teaching time, and that his degree would take longer to complete than other students’.
The police and the university have been criticised for “wasting” their time investigating the incident and threatening freedom of speech.
Lord Young of Acton, the General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, called the case “a deeply shocking story”.
He said: “An argument between two students has been blown out of all proportion by Royal Holloway. Brodie should never have been banned from campus and placed under investigation, let alone reported to the police.”
“What makes Royal Holloway’s actions particularly reprehensible is that Brodie was put through the wringer, while the student who insulted him got off scot-free.”
Robert Jenrick, of Reform UK, said: “There is no law against blasphemy in our country, and the dress codes of terror groups like Hamas are not immune from mockery.
“The public is rightly angry that the police never seem to have the time to help with crimes like burglaries or thefts, but waste time on nonsense like this. The CPS must immediately drop this case, and the Chief Constable needs to explain why he thought a months-long probe was a good use of his officers’ time.”
Mitchell described his police interview as “woke nonsense”, saying: “Nobody has a right not to be offended in this country. It’s free speech. It is not a hate crime.
“Criminally charged over a tea towel comment – that is absolutely crazy, and that should scare everybody.”
A spokesman for Surrey Police said: “We received a report of a hate crime, and an investigation is under way.”
Stop Press: For those who can’t get past the Telegraph’s paywall, the Mail has a non-paywalled rip of the Telegraph story here.
A British university student is facing prosecution after comparing a Keffiyeh worn by a pro-Palestinian activist to a “tea towel” during Freshers’ Fair at @RoyalHolloway.
20-year-old Brodie Mitchell told the President of the Friends of Palestine Society, Huda El-Jamal, that her… pic.twitter.com/UUPIA3F4Xi
— The Free Speech Union (@SpeechUnion) April 9, 2026
There weren’t more than a dozen MPs that came out well from Covid Scamdemic. However I think RJ has improved since then and took a risk in changing parties rather than sticking with the Uniparty.
Not sure about that – it was more about personal ambition than commitment to the cause, I don’t trust him and I think Farage will come to regret a series of recent signings.
I mean Nadine Dorries for goodness’ sake, and there’s half a dozen more who’ve seen the writing on the wall.
Jenrick is seen by some as the golden boy, but not by me.
Significant I think that Bridgen has gone to Restore.
That’s good news about Andrew Bridgen going to Restore, which I hadn’t heard.
Ian Wray
2 days ago
Peel’s Principles for the police: 1. To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment. 2. To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect. 3. To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws. 4. To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives. 5. To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion; but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour; and by ready… Read more »
What a brilliant set of principles, expressed in jargonfree language. I love the cadence and basic common sense of the words: ‘the ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour’.
This will always be my reaction to Islam, too. Although I’m not sure everyone is ready for such graphic content when on their lunch break. Better out than in, though;
😂 That’s precisely my thoughts for about 95% of what I see on Twitter, usually via TikTok. It must be my algorithms but I get an awful lot of progressive nutjobs who’ve filmed themselves having a mental breakdown or generally spazzing out over the most inconsequential bullshit in my newsfeed. I always think: when did shame or dignity stop existing for so many people?🤔 I think people have become desensitised to humiliation, which is why so many upload themselves saying and doing the most retarded shit.
This incident is a crystal clear portrayal of the modern British state. It protects and serves as a weapon for one group of the population (non-whites, muslims, gays, trans, socialists) to attack, intimidate and subjugate another group of the population (whites, christians, heterosexuals, classical liberal and conservatives).
The establishment and its institutions have been completely taken over by the first group and its proponents and It’s going to need a lot more than voting in a party like Reform to change that around.
I think this qualifies. It’s important to remember that old-fashioned racism still exists and should be condemned. Look at this disgusting behaviour from this white supremacist;
“Non crime hate incidents” were meant to be no longer something the police were meant to use but still do. I think a hate crime is aggravation of a real crime
I was under the impression that a ‘hate crime’ was for when an actual crime was
aggravated by being an offense committed against someone with protected characteristics. If so what is the actual crime in this case?
If you look on the University’s website you’ll see a massive emphasis on DEI. This was probably classed as a ‘microaggression’, or similar, so I’m not sure how it could possibly be escalated to a hate crime. That seems preposterous, but it’s the university’s doing because they’re full-on woke. What is also total lunacy, as well as being very regressive, is infantilizing young adults to go snitch to teacher if somebody says words to them that they don’t like. As if they’re back in primary school and some kid calls them ‘big nose’ or ‘fatty’. Like, how is encouraging 18+ year olds to behave like little kids and run to teacher as opposed to fighting their own battles and toughening the hell up so they’re capable of getting through life serving them in any way? That lad was most likely framed as the ‘oppressor’ because he’s white and the tea-towel wet wipe is the ‘oppressed’, and she milked that Marxist set-up for all it was worth and probably feels smug because she’s had the last laugh: revenge, because now he’s being put through the wringer. This from their site. You can’t possibly be an organization which is pro-free speech if… Read more »
Surely calling someone “a wannabee Jew” plus her other comment is, under their own puritanical DEI speak, just as much “microaggresion/abuse”? So why wasn’t she barred from campus and referred to the police? NB rhetorical question. We know why.
I’ll answer it nevertheless: That’s a design feature of a policy like this. Nobody can tell what bullying and harrassment, microaggressions, discrimination, or abuse precisely mean. This is basically just a string of meaningless words supposed to invoke averse emotions — whatever bullying and harrassment, microaggressions, discrimination, or abuse might be, we are all in agreement that nobody should be doing it! Therefore, the university administration needs a bad behaviour tsar who’s at liberty to declare any kind of behaviour bad behaviour as he or she sees fit and initiate appopriate sanctioning procedures to prevent bad behaviour from occuring again.
This amounts to no less than a wholesale dehumanization of all students and staff of Royal Holloway as the theory behind this is that society, any kind of society, can only function properly when nobody has any freedom whatsoever. Whatever it is, it must pass muster of our bad behaviour experts or else …
[If this sounds overly dramatic, that’s because my somewhat sub-par communciation skills. I think it’s actually more dramatic than I could manage to express here.]
Daring to challenge a member of the Protected People and annoying the Thought Police.
Colin Stubbs
2 days ago
Even more reason to avoid university and all of its fake “be kind”, “inclusivity” and especially “diversity”, as its clear that unless you conform you are just one hissy fit away from sanction.
The police and the CPS should be dragged through the courts for being the compliant lackies of insidious grievance grifters
So is Huda El-Jamal a real “Palestinian” then, or a “wannabe”? If it’s OK to call someone a “wannabe Jew” then surely its OK to call them a “wannabe Palestinian”? Isn’t that effectively what he was doing with the tea towel remark?
It’s ok to call a young white man “wannabe Jew” and it’s certainly not ok to call a young brown-skinned woman wearing a headscarf which would come really handy if dishwashing utensils were ever missing anything, including her own name. I bet this can count as microaggression because of malicious pronounciation or evil glint in the eye or inbred subconscious racism. Or whatever other complicated sounding justification the campus bad behaviour tsarina can make up for “I want to harm this guy because I have the power to.”
Rusty123
1 day ago
Rather suspect its more about the fees being paid, than anything else, another one we’ll no doubt have to keep, clearly isnt going to go back home
shred
1 day ago
According to the Holloway website, most of the management are Chinese or foreign. It’s no surprise that it’s a subversive anti British institution.
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“Robert Jenrick, of Reform UK”
I remember him on the covid briefings six years ago.
Hardly likely to be someone who’s going to save the country.
There weren’t more than a dozen MPs that came out well from Covid Scamdemic. However I think RJ has improved since then and took a risk in changing parties rather than sticking with the Uniparty.
Not sure about that – it was more about personal ambition than commitment to the cause, I don’t trust him and I think Farage will come to regret a series of recent signings.
I mean Nadine Dorries for goodness’ sake, and there’s half a dozen more who’ve seen the writing on the wall.
Jenrick is seen by some as the golden boy, but not by me.
Significant I think that Bridgen has gone to Restore.
That’s good news about Andrew Bridgen going to Restore, which I hadn’t heard.
Peel’s Principles for the police: 1. To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment. 2. To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect. 3. To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws. 4. To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives. 5. To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion; but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour; and by ready… Read more »
What a brilliant set of principles, expressed in jargonfree language. I love the cadence and basic common sense of the words: ‘the ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour’.
And, fits on one page. They don’t write like that any more.
You’d never get anything less than 20000 words nowadays, which is partly why nothing works in this sad day and age.
Exactly this! Crisp, clear and well defined.
Tea towels, tablecloths, bed-spreads…those black and white essentials for every Gaza fashionista!
Gingham
Whatever the outcome I am sure plod will put this down as a crime solved. Lovely bubbly.
This will always be my reaction to Islam, too. Although I’m not sure everyone is ready for such graphic content when on their lunch break. Better out than in, though;
https://x.com/RadioGenoa/status/2042555805833015368
Why would anybody put that up on social media?
😂 That’s precisely my thoughts for about 95% of what I see on Twitter, usually via TikTok. It must be my algorithms but I get an awful lot of progressive nutjobs who’ve filmed themselves having a mental breakdown or generally spazzing out over the most inconsequential bullshit in my newsfeed. I always think: when did shame or dignity stop existing for so many people?🤔 I think people have become desensitised to humiliation, which is why so many upload themselves saying and doing the most retarded shit.
Well, the US Navy has a fighter squadron called the Pukin’ Dogs. VF-143 if anyone is interested.
This incident is a crystal clear portrayal of the modern British state. It protects and serves as a weapon for one group of the population (non-whites, muslims, gays, trans, socialists) to attack, intimidate and subjugate another group of the population (whites, christians, heterosexuals, classical liberal and conservatives).
The establishment and its institutions have been completely taken over by the first group and its proponents and It’s going to need a lot more than voting in a party like Reform to change that around.
Call me stupid, but I thought “hate crimes” have been kicked into the long grass. Shows how much I understand of this crazy, topsy turvy world.
Non-crime hate incidents were.
I think this qualifies. It’s important to remember that old-fashioned racism still exists and should be condemned. Look at this disgusting behaviour from this white supremacist;
https://x.com/RadioGenoa/status/2042565311346462839
😀😀😀
“Non crime hate incidents” were meant to be no longer something the police were meant to use but still do. I think a hate crime is aggravation of a real crime
Fords wail me.
I was under the impression that a ‘hate crime’ was for when an actual crime was
aggravated by being an offense committed against someone with protected characteristics. If so what is the actual crime in this case?
If you look on the University’s website you’ll see a massive emphasis on DEI. This was probably classed as a ‘microaggression’, or similar, so I’m not sure how it could possibly be escalated to a hate crime. That seems preposterous, but it’s the university’s doing because they’re full-on woke. What is also total lunacy, as well as being very regressive, is infantilizing young adults to go snitch to teacher if somebody says words to them that they don’t like. As if they’re back in primary school and some kid calls them ‘big nose’ or ‘fatty’. Like, how is encouraging 18+ year olds to behave like little kids and run to teacher as opposed to fighting their own battles and toughening the hell up so they’re capable of getting through life serving them in any way? That lad was most likely framed as the ‘oppressor’ because he’s white and the tea-towel wet wipe is the ‘oppressed’, and she milked that Marxist set-up for all it was worth and probably feels smug because she’s had the last laugh: revenge, because now he’s being put through the wringer. This from their site. You can’t possibly be an organization which is pro-free speech if… Read more »
Surely calling someone “a wannabee Jew” plus her other comment is, under their own puritanical DEI speak, just as much “microaggresion/abuse”? So why wasn’t she barred from campus and referred to the police? NB rhetorical question. We know why.
I’ll answer it nevertheless: That’s a design feature of a policy like this. Nobody can tell what bullying and harrassment, microaggressions, discrimination, or abuse precisely mean. This is basically just a string of meaningless words supposed to invoke averse emotions — whatever bullying and harrassment, microaggressions, discrimination, or abuse might be, we are all in agreement that nobody should be doing it! Therefore, the university administration needs a bad behaviour tsar who’s at liberty to declare any kind of behaviour bad behaviour as he or she sees fit and initiate appopriate sanctioning procedures to prevent bad behaviour from occuring again.
This amounts to no less than a wholesale dehumanization of all students and staff of Royal Holloway as the theory behind this is that society, any kind of society, can only function properly when nobody has any freedom whatsoever. Whatever it is, it must pass muster of our bad behaviour experts or else …
[If this sounds overly dramatic, that’s because my somewhat sub-par communciation skills. I think it’s actually more dramatic than I could manage to express here.]
It’s *always* inclusive for ‘all’ – except for white, straight conservative males.
Daring to challenge a member of the Protected People and annoying the Thought Police.
Even more reason to avoid university and all of its fake “be kind”, “inclusivity” and especially “diversity”, as its clear that unless you conform you are just one hissy fit away from sanction.
The police and the CPS should be dragged through the courts for being the compliant lackies of insidious grievance grifters
So is Huda El-Jamal a real “Palestinian” then, or a “wannabe”? If it’s OK to call someone a “wannabe Jew” then surely its OK to call them a “wannabe Palestinian”? Isn’t that effectively what he was doing with the tea towel remark?
It’s ok to call a young white man “wannabe Jew” and it’s certainly not ok to call a young brown-skinned woman wearing a headscarf which would come really handy if dishwashing utensils were ever missing anything, including her own name. I bet this can count as microaggression because of malicious pronounciation or evil glint in the eye or inbred subconscious racism. Or whatever other complicated sounding justification the campus bad behaviour tsarina can make up for “I want to harm this guy because I have the power to.”
Rather suspect its more about the fees being paid, than anything else, another one we’ll no doubt have to keep, clearly isnt going to go back home
According to the Holloway website, most of the management are Chinese or foreign. It’s no surprise that it’s a subversive anti British institution.