On the “Hate Crime” Charges Against NYC Journalist Samuel Seligson

On Tuesday, August 6, after his home was raided twice by the NYPD, independent journalist and videographer Samuel Seligson was arrested and charged with a felony hate crime for allegedly documenting a direct action against Brooklyn Museum leadership.

The case against Seligson sets a dangerous precedent for criminalizing independent press, “when even the observation of an unlawful incident by a member of the media exposes that journalist to claims of criminal culpability.” Calling the charges “very alarming,” the advocacy group, Freedom of the Press said: “Cops and prosecutors have dreamed up plenty of convoluted theories to criminalize journalism, but [the NYPD and the DA’s office] charging a reporter with a hate crime for documenting news has to be one of the most outrageous yet.” 

"The direct action referred to happened on June 11th, in which four Brooklyn Museum executives’ homes, including director Anne Pasternak were targeted. The actionists threw red paint at the houses, tagging their exteriors with “free Palestine” and “white supremacist Zionist.”

Seligson is the second person associated with the action to be charged with a felony hate crime. Last week, on July 31st, Taylor Pelton received the same charges for allegedly driving the actionists to and from the houses and spraypainting the sidewalk. 

The action came two weeks after a protest of the museum’s financial and cultural ties to Israel, which has killed at least 40,000 Palestinians—including 165 journalists—in its present genocidal war on Gaza. “The Brooklyn Museum […] was targeted (as it has been targeted so many times before over the years) for its complicity in the genocide through its corporate funding from sponsors like Bank of America, Dior and Bank of NY Mellon which directly financially contributes to the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF),” one of the organizers of the protest told Middle East Eye. At the behest of the institution, many of the protestors both inside and outside the lobby of the museum were mass arrested by the NYPD. 

The Brooklyn Museum executives were targeted because of their complicity in Israel's genocide and repression of pro-Palestine speech, not because of their identities. Three out of the four executives whose homes were targeted are not Jewish, contrary to the initial claims propagated by the New York Times. Nevertheless, Seligson now faces felony hate crime charges for his alleged role in filming the June 11 action. (He has not been accused of spray-painting or damaging any of the properties.) 

“The use of hate crimes legislation to protect millionaires who are being protested because of their use of power and influence is absolutely absurd,” said Seligson’s attorney, Leena Widdi. “Hate crimes legislation is purportedly an enhancement that provides extra protection for vulnerable classes of people, and we are seeing it increasingly weaponized against people who are expressing their rage over the genocide in Palestine.”

Seligson himself is Jewish. But if he were not Jewish, it would be no less absurd to charge him with a hate crime for documenting an anti-Zionist action. Zionism is not Judaism. It is not a religion, an identity, or a protected class. It is a genocidal ideology that is staunchly opposed by people from every religious, ethnic, and cultural background around the world.

The hate crime charges are not only a vile overreach; they are a further outrage when applied to a journalist who can be credibly accused of nothing more than doing his job. As Widdi told The Intercept, “[t]he state has not provided any reliable evidence that Mr. Seligson was actually there.”

Further, these hate crime charges obscure what the action at the museum executives’ properties was intended to achieve: to refuse powerful cultural institutions and their leaders comfortable complicity in genocide and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) names these falsified charges for what they are: cynical prosecutorial threats aimed at chilling Palestinian solidarity and criminalizing crucial journalism that sheds light on the struggle for Palestinian liberation. We stand with Seligson, Pelton, independent journalists, and actionists working toward a free Palestine.