More pro-Palestine protestors – including an Aberdeen University professor – have appeared at court following alleged disturbances at two Aberdeen shops last month.
Ten people have now been charged with an alleged breach of the peace at the Home Bargains store at Aberdeen’s beach, while three were allegedly causing a similar disturbance at the shopping chain’s Berryden store a week later.
Willemein Hoogendoorn, 62, was previously remanded in custody after the February 15 beach protest because she refused to adhere to bail conditions that would ban her from Home Bargains stores across the UK.
A trial date for Hoogendoorn was set for March 21 and she denies the charge of breach of the peace.
Nine appear in court
Jonathan Christie, 36, Karolin Hijazi, 44, Carol Burgess, 43, Iona Fielder, 19, Medina Elmusharaf, 31, Esmond Sage, 33, David Black, 40, Sanaa Al-Azawi, 52, and Jolene Mackay, 42, have now also appeared in court in connection with that incident and are accused of acting in a disorderly manner.
Hoogendoorn is further charged with failing to give her name to arresting officers, as is Hijazi – who is a professor at the University of Aberdeen Institute of Dentistry.
Al-Azawi is further alleged to have recklessly damaged property on the same day by applying stickers to “numerous products” preventing them from being sold.
Sage, Black, and Mackay are all also charged with acting in a disorderly manner at Home Bargains in Berryden a week later, on February 22.
The charges allege the trio placed stickers on products, disrupted staff members from doing their jobs and allegedly “causing annoyance and alarm to members of the public”.
A trial date of June 17 was set for the remaining nine protestors and all were released on bail under the condition none of them enter a Home Bargains store anywhere in the UK.
All 10 deny the charges against them.
A social media post called for people to boycott the store because they believe Home Bargains are selling products produced by the Israelis – including bath salts made from the Dead Sea.