As Leicester Crown Court heard the retrial on 9 January 2026, UK-based group CAGE International ran an open mobilization drive urging supporters to gather outside the court in Majid Freeman’s defense, branding him a humanitarian and anti-genocide activist. The key development is that the retrial has already concluded and the court has quashed Freeman’s earlier public order conviction, a result CAGE has described as exoneration.
The 2024 conviction that triggered the retrial
As per OpIndia reports, Freeman had previously been convicted under the UK Public Order Act (Section 4) and sentenced to a short prison term for behavior linked to the Leicester unrest of 2022, according to reporting and campaign material circulated around the case. That earlier conviction became the centerpiece of competing political narratives: one side framing it as accountability for inflammatory conduct, the other as a politicized prosecution.
Court outcome: cleared/exonerated, say multiple reports
Multiple outlets now report that at the 9 January hearing, Freeman was cleared and his conviction was quashed. Middle East Eye reported that he was cleared of all charges, while 5Pillars and CAGE have claimed exoneration following the conviction’s reversal. Supportive commentary outlets have also presented the verdict as full vindication, arguing the evidence shows he tried to reduce tensions rather than inflame them.
The whitewashing campaign around Majid Freeman
In September 2024, Majid Freeman, an Islamic activist, was jailed for 22 weeks in connection with attempts to incite violence during the 2022 Leicester unrest. The case drew attention because his public messaging during that period was seen as amplifying communal hostility and misrepresenting the role of Hindus at a time when tensions were already volatile.
Before the hearing scheduled for 9 January 2026, the UK-based NGO CAGE International launched a campaign presenting Freeman as a humanitarian and anti-genocide activist. Its flyer claimed he had been convicted in a politicized trial and framed the 2022 disorder as ‘Hindutva-inspired riots,’ asserting he was defending the Leicester community after alleged failures by Leicestershire Police.
On social media, CAGE urged supporters to ‘Mobilize for Majid Freeman’ and gather at Leicester Crown Court on 9 January, calling it an act of solidarity. The campaign sought to recast Freeman’s conviction as political punishment and to sanitize his role during the unrest, even as the earlier sentence related to conduct the court treated as criminal during a sensitive communal flashpoint.
Hindu groups reject the victim narrative and warn of victim-flipping
INSIGHT UK said Majid Freeman was convicted of a racially aggravated public order offense linked to the Leicester riots, with the court concluding that he used abusive language with the intention of provoking violence. It argued that, in spite of this conviction, CAGE is attempting a ‘victim flip,’ recasting Freeman as a targeted community protector while minimizing conduct that, in INSIGHT UK’s view, intensified anti-Hindu hostility in a city already tense and affected by street violence. The organization also questioned why CAGE, which it described as having a track record of defending extremist figures, is now actively mobilizing support for someone it says helped deepen fear and hatred for Hindus in Leicester.
Majid Freeman’s claims during the Leicester unrest
Unrest gripped Leicester on 28 August 2022 after a scuffle linked to celebrations following Bharat’s T20 win over Pakistan, during which the Bharatiya flag was reportedly desecrated. While some Hindu residents sought to de-escalate tensions and even helped the individual involved, Majid Freeman pushed a narrative that blamed Hindus, adding fuel to a situation that was already spiraling.
As disinformation spread in the aftermath, Freeman on 30 August 2022 alleged that Hindus in Leicester had raised chants of ‘death to Muslims,’ a claim that police later said was not true. The same day, he also circulated a rumor on X (then Twitter) suggesting that the Quran had been desecrated in Leicester and implied Hindu involvement. Those claims were later shown to be baseless, but by then they had already deepened suspicion and heightened communal anger on the streets.
CAGE International’s ‘Free Majid Freeman’ push
Founded in 2003 as the CagePrisoners Project and rebranded in 2013 as CAGE International, the organization says it provides information about detainees held under post-9/11 counterterrorism frameworks to families, lawyers, the media, and researchers. In practice, CAGE has repeatedly positioned itself as an advocacy shield for high-profile Islamist convicts and terror-linked figures, framing their cases as examples of misused counter-terror laws rather than confronting the gravity of what courts and investigators have documented.
CAGE’s record includes campaigning for the release of Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani, described as a close associate of Osama bin Laden, and promoting support for Aafia Siddiqui, often referred to as ‘Lady Al-Qaeda,’ who is serving a lengthy prison sentence in the United States after conviction in a case involving an attack on US officials in Afghanistan. These choices have fuelled long-standing criticism that CAGE’s activism frequently drifts from civil-liberties concerns into the rehabilitation of extremist narratives and personalities.
In the Leicester context, CAGE adopted the same playbook: it attempted to reframe the 2022 unrest as ‘Hindutva-inspired riots,’ alleging that police failures enabled ‘paramilitary-style marches’ and blaming Hindu agitators for the tensions. That framing mirrors the broader line pushed by Majid Freeman and other Islamist influencers, including Mohammad Hijab, who have sought to shift responsibility away from those accused of stoking communal hostility and onto Hindus as a collective. But the legal findings in the Leicester cases have repeatedly cut against this propaganda-driven storyline, undermining efforts to recast perpetrators as victims and to launder street-level incitement into activism.
A separate terror-related case still shadows Freeman
Beyond the Leicester public-order case, Freeman (reported in some outlets as Majid Novsarka) has also faced separate UK counter-terrorism charges, including allegations of encouraging terrorism and of supporting a proscribed organization, as reported by outlets such as the Financial Times. This parallel track is frequently cited by critics to challenge the humanitarian branding, while his supporters argue he is being targeted for activism and speech.
For Hindu families in Leicester who lived through those nights, Majid Freeman’s name doesn’t feel like an abstract free speech debate; it feels personal. They remember shutters pulled down early, children kept indoors, and the knot in the stomach every time a crowd gathered and slogans turned the street into a threat. So when campaigners now repackage Freeman as a humanitarian and demand public sympathy, it lands like a slap: not because people oppose mercy, but because they saw what the mobilization around that unrest did to ordinary Hindu residents—fear, intimidation, and the sense that their pain could be dismissed as collateral.
Freeman was convicted for public order offenses linked to that same flashpoint, and that fact matters. Accountability is not Islamophobia, and the court is not a stage for rewriting history. If supporters want to defend him, let it be done through evidence and law, not pressure crowds and victimhood branding that erases the lived experience of those who felt targeted. Leicester doesn’t need rumors to see the core truth: when a convicted agitator is celebrated and amplified, it tells the victims to be quiet and tells future agitators that the loudest narrative, not justice, will win.
