Activist Avoids Hate Crime Conviction Over Graffiti, Sentencing Still Looms

In the same week that Israel attacked Qatar and Syria, and continued its military occupation in Gaza, a trial began in Fort Worth for a Texas activist who allegedly spray-painted “Fuck Israel” on the wall of a nondenominational church.

Raunaq Alam, 32, was charged with criminal mischief and a hate crime for the graffiti, which occurred at Euless’ Uncommon Church in March 2024. The jury rejected the hate crimes escalation that could have sent Alam to prison for up to 10 years, but it found Alam guilty of criminal mischief. Sentencing is set for later today.

The trial was held at Tarrant County’s Tim Curry Criminal Justice Center, a daunting structure of sun-stained brick in downtown Fort Worth. On the first day, Alam’s defense attorney, Adwoa Asante, walked through a long eighth-floor hallway full of supporters and entered the courtroom wearing pink headphones that appeared to be blasting pump-up music. Asante was up against Lloyd Whelchel, a prosecutor typically assigned to death penalty cases.

One of the case’s emotional high points was the testimony of 26-year-old Julia Venzor, who, along with 23-year-old Afsheen Khan, was also arrested for the graffiti and hate crimes charges. Venzor ultimately made a deal with the prosecution, agreeing to plead guilty and receive five years' probation in exchange for her testimony against Alam.

When Venzor, wearing a white hijab and escorted by an armed officer, entered the courtroom on Tuesday, there was an audible sigh among Alam’s supporters. Several people looked down and wiped tears from their eyes, and Asante briefly gripped Alam’s shoulder.

The proceedings largely focused on the hate crimes element of the charges, which were added months after Alam’s original arrest. The prosecution showed video of the incident, which depicted the words “Fuck Israel” spray-painted on a wall beneath a flagpole bearing the Israeli flag. The indictment argued that the graffiti constitutes “bias or prejudice against a group identified by national origin and/or ancestry and/or religion, namely, the state of Israel or Jewish faith.”

This conflation of Israel and Judaism was both legally questionable and deeply troubling for Alam, Asante and multiple experts.

Yasmin Nair, a writer and researcher who has studied and critiqued hate-crime legislation, told The Guardian, “The notion of a hate crime has been fitted over these very expansive definitions of antisemitism. Now, hate-crime laws can be used to fulfill a rather different agenda that’s not even entirely a domestic agenda. Even thinking of critiquing what’s happening in Gaza is considered antisemitic.”

Other attorneys and experts agreed, including Barry Trachtenberg, a defense witness and the chair of Jewish History at Wake Forest University.

“We tried to make a very strong case that opposing Israel’s genocide is not antisemitic,” Trachtenberg says.

After taking the stand, he said he wasn’t sure how his efforts were received.

“I thought the prosecutor was very afraid of hearing about the genocide that is happening [in Gaza] and sought to deny the jury the right to hear that information,” he says.

But the jury unanimously rejected the hate crimes escalation in what Alam’s sister, Najwa Alam Armstrong, called “a rollercoaster” of a moment: The defendant’s family, all in attendance, were relieved that Alam would not be convicted of a hate crime, but they anxiously waited to hear what the sentencing would be for the criminal mischief conviction.