Early last month, Raunaq Alam, a 32-year-old Bangladeshi American from the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Hurst, was on the verge of spending a decade behind bars for the alleged hate crime of spray-painting the words “Fuck Israel” on the outside of a non-denominational Christian church in nearby Euless.
His trial on the trumped-up charge was a classic example of a violation of First Amendment rights and a sign that Alam was being targeted for pro-Palestine activism, said his attorneys and supporters.
On September 12, Alam was spared this fate as a Tarrant County jury rejected the elevated charge, instead convicting him of lower-level criminal mischief and sentencing him to probation. But Judge Brian Bolton, who presided over the felony trial despite being a misdemeanor judge, added a probation condition: 180 days in jail, starting immediately—a decision that has helped set off a chain of events during which Alam, one of three charged in the graffiti incident (the “Tarrant Three”), has found himself cycling in and out of jail.
