A queer pro-Palestine protester was shoved by a police officer. Now she's been charged (exclusive)

After being the victim of violence herself, Lamia Moukaddam is the one facing charges.

The 27-year-old went viral earlier this week after footage from her arrest at a pro-Palestine protest Saturday began circulating online. What police have claimed was a standard detainment meant to prevent escalation was instead "a violation to a completely new extent," Moukaddam tells The Advocate.

Moukaddam, who is the cofounder of a harm reduction nonprofit that works to prevent overdoses, was leaving the rally in downtown Orlando held by Central Florida Queers for Palestine when her small group was accosted by a woman leaving a nearby grocery store. While they did not know the woman, Moukaddam says they recognized her, as she had berated them earlier during the protest.

The group, traveling to their cars together as the "best practice" for safety, attempted to ignore the woman until some police officers who had also been hanging around the demonstration arrived. While the officers did not obstruct the group, they did not intervene to prevent the woman from screaming at them — in fact, Moukaddam says the officers instead walked with the woman as if escorting her as she followed and harassed them.

Moukaddam decided to record the scene in front of her — which she was within her legal rights to do. That was when the situation escalated, she says, though not due to her actions.

"I pull out my phone and I go toward them so I can just record the way that they're working together. I just wanted to be able to document it," Moukaddam explains. "And from there, the officer took a step off of his bike, pushed his arm out, and shoved me into the ground and into a tree a few feet away."

Those around Moukaddam then "rushed to come help," with some putting themselves between her and the officer as well as covering her head to protect her "from being further brutalized."

"There was no announcement of 'You're under arrest.' So, what people around me see is a grown man just shoved someone into the ground," Moukaddam says.

The officers then started "grabbing anybody they could get to." Moukaddan says that she was among eight people who were arrested and held in the back of a police van for a "wild amount of time," until their clothes were "literally soaking wet with our sweat."

"They wouldn't listen to us when we said 'We can't breathe.' We said, 'We're about to pass out.' They just slammed the door on our face," she says.

The eight were then taken to the Orange County jail, where they were arrested and booked. Moukaddam was charged with disorderly conduct, though she noted that the affidavit police issued "falsely claims that I lunged at [the officer] and the woman, or that it looked like I was about to batter the woman."

The Advocate reached out to the Orlando Police Department but did not receive the requested information. The department told the Associated Press that the protesters demonstrated a “willingness to physically attack officers while in the process of making arrests and keeping the peace.”

“The Orlando Police Department has an obligation to protect all residents and visitors and is dedicated to ensuring the safety of all who choose to assemble peacefully,” it stated.

Moukaddam calls the assertions "fan fiction."

Several members of Moukaddam's group were kept in solitary confinement at the jail, she says, but not before officers "stripped us naked" to perform a search.

"We were changing with eight officers in a room, recording us on a phone camera. I got a taser pulled out on me for asking them to correct the spelling of my name because the paperwork was incorrect," Moukaddam says. "I've been arrested twice before for protesting, and never have they done that before. Never has there been a camera present. Never been multiple people in the room. It was a violation to a completely new extent."

All of the eight people arrested have since been released, though the damage still lingers. Moukaddam says she now has a concussion as well as "nerve damage in my hands from the handcuffs." The left side of her head was "bumped and bruised," she says, and her left shoulder is "cut up." She says she's still dealing with "overall body soreness."

While it may have seemed like just one woman provoked the incident, Moukaddam says, "The reality of it is that the Orlando Police Department has done this for months and years now until it really culminated to a moment like that."

"This repression has been going on, specifically toward pro-Palestine and our pro-Lebanon protesters," she says. "But this is just a micro example of a bigger picture in which these tactics are also happening overseas. This brutalization is happening overseas, and it's being brought home even to the point of our experiences in jail. The only difference between us in the sweltering heat in the back of the prison van is that in Gaza, they wouldn't be let out."

The Orlando Police Department is now investigating to determine if excessive force was used during the arrests. Moukaddam says that "while it's great that an investigation is being opened, it's interesting to have the abuser investigate themselves."

Moukaddam and her fellow protesters are now "working toward ensuring that all charges get dropped and also ensuring that all of the officers are held accountable." Central Florida Queers for Palestine is also hosting a bail fund to assist the group. Moukaddam says the brutality they experienced won't stop them from mobilizing again.

"Our intention for the protest was to bring visibility to the terrorist attacks happening in Lebanon right now with the phone pagers and the increased bombardments as well in Gaza," Moukaddam says. "We're about to host a week of action and just continue to show up in the streets, continue to protest, and really just not let their repression get in the way."

Israel's war on Gaza has killed over 40,000 people, more than 10,000 of whom were children, the AP reports. Since Israel began escalating attacks in Lebanon, 530 have been killed, including nearly 100 civilians.

To Moukaddam, whose family is Lebanese and whose father and grandfather were involved in resistance, "It's a generational duty to continue to fight."

"Seeing my family being blanket bombed, there is no choice but to fight back," she says. "The more that we let happen here in silence, the worse that it's going to get. Change needed to happen yesterday, but if it has to happen today, then that happens today."