Statement to Princeton Municipal Council
400 Witherspoon St
Princeton, New Jersey
April 13, 2026

Hi, my name is Irfan Khawaja; I live in Princeton.

Given the dearth of information we’ve gotten regarding this draft ordinance about public demonstrations, I, too, would like to put this issue into a wider context.

In May 2024, the University shut down Gaza Solidarity Encampment, had some people arrested, and shut Cannon Green down to “organized activity” for the first time in 250 years. It’s been closed for two years now, and there’s no indication of when, if ever, it will open. 

In April 2025, I directly witnessed an event in which PSafe threatened someone with arrest for using the word “Nazi” on campus. In November 2025, PSafe threatened students with arrest for distributing flyers on campus.

Screenshot of the November 2025 incident

Christopher Eisgruber visited Council a couple of weeks ago, but predictably, none of you brought any of these things up with him. You might say it’s not your business, except that the violation of University rules is chargeable as defiant trespass in your Municipal Court, and has been. So you can’t claim that what happens at the University is somehow disconnected from the Municipality.

Now, cross the street. With much fanfare and expense, you’ve decided that the kiosks are ugly, and have to go. Pro forma, you’ve left room for flyers, somewhere, nobody knows where. But message received: you’re to control the messaging.

The Wizard of Nassau Hall, speaking in New York, April 16, 2026

Now walk down Witherspoon Street. Somebody graffitis the wall of a park saying “Death to the IDF.” The IDF is a foreign army engaged in a series of foreign wars, but your police department has construed this statement as chargeable under bias intimidation–of whom, it’s unclear. Since the suspect in this case is unlikely to be found, the case is unlikely to be brought before a magistrate for a probable cause hearing: there’s no one to bring. So by the legal equivalent of magic, this statement has become a de facto hate crime.

The common denominator of all of these cases is the manipulation of facially neutral rules for restrictive ends. For that reason, I’m not inclined to regard any of it as an “exemplary track record.”* Just the reverse. It’s a very tricky sort of non-exemplary track record.

Cannon Green on the second anniversary of the encampments: chained, fenced off, and shut down, lest anyone commemorate what happened there (April 18, 2026)

I’m likewise disinclined to take at face value any proclamations of commitment to the First Amendment. We need to see the text of the ordinance you want to introduce. And we need to scrutinize it in a spirit of frank adversariality, because that’s what we face. An adversarial posture is the only way we can deal with what we face.

*Councilwoman Mia Sacks had used the quoted phrase to describe the Municipality’s track record in a statement preceding mine.

Here is a link to the video of the Council meeting. Councilwoman Sacks’s comment begins at around minute 30:30. Mine begins at 1:02:20.