(NBC) Charlotte Kates, a New Jersey native and Rutgers Law School graduate who co-founded the pro-Hamas organization Samidoun, has become the focus of an ongoing legal debate: When does free speech cross the line into breaking federal anti-terrorism laws?
Over the last year, Kates, who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, said she met with mid-level leaders of at least two U.S.-designated terrorist organizations at a public conference in South Africa. She also joined members of the groups in online seminars in which they urged the audience to support Hamas and Hezbollah.
“The Palestinian resistance and the Lebanese resistance are not engaging in terrorism,” Kates told NBC News. “They’re engaging in a national liberation struggle.”
