Police seek more time to ‘gag’ Zara Cooper for Sarah Schwartz posts

Victoria Police are seeking additional time to gather evidence against Israel advocate Zara Cooper for alleged threats against Sarah Schwartz, as a magistrate considers dismissing their legal battle amid claims of misconstrued online posts.

Instagram campaigner Zara Cooper, known online as clammy_fraud, has been critical of the Jewish Council and its "legitimacy". Picture: Nadir Kinani

Victoria Police have been accused of attempting to “gag” Israeli advocate Zara Cooper in a “frivolous” court case, as a magistrate considers ending the legal dispute involving controversial pro-Palestine advocate Sarah Schwartz.

The Australian on Sunday revealed police had applied for a personal safety intervention order on behalf of Ms Schwartz, the leader of the Jewish Council of Australia, alleging Ms Cooper’s online commentary was severely ­affecting her mental health.

Ms Cooper on Tuesday appeared before Magistrate Michelle Hodgson at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court, flanked by Jewish supporters including high-profile Holocaust survivor Nina Bassat. Ms Schwartz did not attend the hearing in person.

Sarah Schwartz did not attend court on Tuesday.

Police, in the application, claimed Ms Schwartz – who recently was criticised for presenting a slide titled “Dutton’s Jew” at a Queensland University of Technology anti-racism conference – had been threatened with Nazi comparisons featured on Ms Cooper’s account. Ms Cooper accused them of ­misconstruing her posts.

During the first hearing of the matter on Tuesday, police prosecution backflipped on their decision to apply for an interim order, after last week indicating they would seek one.

The prosecution requested an adjournment, citing the need to gather further evidence despite providing 26 pages of social media contents to the court.

The court heard that Ms Schwartz did not provide any harmful social media posts to police, but instead the alleged content was compiled solely by Acting Sergeant Stuart Hall, who put together the brief of evidence from Ms Cooper’s Instagram posts before the court.

Instagram campaigner Zara Cooper who has been critical of the Jewish Council and its legitimacy. Picture: Nadir Kinani

Defence barrister Carly Marcs opposed the adjournment, claiming the Victoria Police application was “frivolous” and arguing the matter should be thrown out immediately. Ms Marcs said there was insufficient evidence provided by police to support an application for an intervention order and the specific allegations.

“The issue is that there is no evidence and police are well aware that they would fail to gain that order,” she said.

“The application itself is frivolous ... (there’s) no evidence to Nazi reference or imagery of protected persons.

“It’s never going to change or get better in circumstances where no criminal charges have been filed. There’s no stalking, harassment (and) the two parties have never interacted in person. They’ve never spoken directly.”

Ms Marcs said there was a “larger issue” at play, claiming Ms Schwartz had co-ordinated three concerns notices on multiple Jewish organisations as well as The Australian in an attempt to “stifle free speech”.

“This application and order is effectively a gag order on Ms Cooper,” Ms Marcs said.

Ms Schwartz has refused requests to provide screenshots of posts made by Ms Cooper that she was most concerned with, but told The Australian on Sunday it “was a matter for Victoria Police”.

According to the intervention order application, police are seeking to prohibit Ms Cooper from going within 5m of Ms Schwartz, or within 200m of where she lives or works.

The order would also stop her from publishing anything online about Ms Schwartz.

Magistrate Hodgson said the application to strike out the case was “premature” and declared she had more pressing priorities to deal with given the “immediate safety” risk of Ms Schwartz was not put forward. The matter was adjourned until March 26.