In the week since Isabel Rosa Araoju’s conviction, Andy Ngo has been busy taking a victory lap. Nine separate posts on Twitter/X, an article in The Post Millennial, a blog entry for his “Ngo Comment” project, and even a Newsmax TV appearance — all centered on the same misdemeanor case.
What’s missing from Ngo’s account is just as telling as what’s included. Araoju was acquitted of Assault IV and convicted instead of the lesser charge of Attempted Assault IV, a B-class misdemeanor, alongside an A-class misdemeanor for unlawful use of mace. By law, each carries a combined maximum penalty of 364 days in jail, and Oregon’s sentencing norms mean she will almost certainly serve no jail time, but instead some form of probation.
Ngo leaves out the “attempted” part entirely, allowing him to frame the outcome as a violent assault conviction. On Aug. 7, he tweeted: “Violent Portland Trantifa militant ‘Isabel Rosa Araoju,’ formerly [former name with no bearing on the case], has been convicted by a jury for violently attacking a woman.” By omitting the legal reality, he inflates the perceived severity and casts Araoju as a dangerous militant “walking free.”
That framing plays well with his audience — many of whom have responded with calls for punishments the justice system cannot legally impose. Replies to Ngo’s posts include: “He should rot in prison for life,” “Put him in GP and let nature take its course,” and “He’s lucky all he got was probation; people like that need an ass-kicking.” Under Oregon law, none of these outcomes are possible — but the rhetoric spreads anyway.
Ngo insists he doesn’t call for harassment, but his selective likes and silence in the face of violent rhetoric from followers function as tacit approval. In one thread, a reply calling Araoju a “tranny terrorist” drew dozens of likes.
The risk will only grow. Self-defense is expected to be a contentious point before the judge, and the likely probation-heavy sentence will further inflame Ngo’s most hostile readers. This is not speculation; it’s a pattern. Long before the trial even began, Araoju’s home address was doxxed on anti-trans website Kiwi Farms, a site that takes a particular pleasure from it’s users tormenting and harassing trans people and celebrating when one of their victims kills themselves. It’s also worth remembering that before the trial, Araoju had already completed an anger management program and was in consistent mental health treatment — part of a civil compromise agreement with the victim, Sorbeah al-Mosa. Almosa pulled out of that agreement the day before trial, but the steps Araoju completed are still likely to carry weight with the judge at sentencing, especially with the defense arguing that Araoju needs some way to protect herself from people who wish harm on her. Simply relying on the police for protection is not enough. Araoju herself has been a staunch critic of police for years, and even Almosa, when on the stand during the trial, expressed that the police are a mixed bag. A mixed bag that, in closing arguments, the defense pointed out didn’t even seem invested to do their jobs investigating. Two officers who testified to their involvement in the case stated they were former members of the Rapid Response Team, Portland’s old version of ‘riot police’, during the 2020 social justice protests, when they faced severe and continued criticism from the same people Araoju is aligned with. The bias was there for them to seek out witnesses to bolster the claim to go after ‘Antifa’, but no effort was made, relying entirely on an edited version of Almosa’s social media videos.
The Video That Says More Than Intended
On Aug. 8, Ngo shared a video from Almosa that went beyond the trial. Filmed in what appears to be her Portland-area apartment, it shows her tearing apart and burning a Quran while declaring that “you cannot be trans, and a Muslim. You cannot be gay and a Muslim” before repeating the same for the entire LGBTQ+ community. As a side note, burning anything — holy books or otherwise — inside an apartment is generally a quick way to violate city fire codes or your lease.
The sentiment she expressed isn’t unique to Islam. The three major Abrahamic religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — all have scriptures that have been used to justify the exclusion, shaming or punishment of LGBTQ+ people.
In Judaism, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 are the “clobber verses.” In Christianity, those passages are joined by Romans 1:26-27 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. In Islam, it’s the Quranic story of Lot, interpreted by many as condemning same-sex acts.
But each of these faiths also has sects and movements that have moved past those readings. Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism ordain LGBTQ+ rabbis. Many mainline Protestant denominations welcome LGBTQ+ clergy and marriages. Groups like Musaims for Progressive Values argue the Quran’s story of Lot is about sexual violence, not love between consenting adults.
Almosa’s assertion that Islam is uniquely incompatible with LGBTQ+ identity erases that internal diversity — and obscures the fact that the religion she appears to be promoting (as evidenced by her support of Christian ‘Western Values’ rhetoric) does and is still use these scriptures to attack and demonize the LGBTQ+ community. As someone who grew up in an Evangelical Christian household and was rejected by my entire family for simply being trans, it is a dichotomy I am intimately familiar with.
The Questionable Testimony
The video also highlighted certain questionable artifacts of her testimony on the stand, a testimony that Judge Brown, with the jury out of the room, told the lawyers she found questionable at best. She insisted on the stand that she ‘wasn’t a fan of that person’, referring to Andy Ngo, when reaching out to him for the post that was later used to identify Arajou, yet her video was quickly picked up by Andy when it suited their combined purposes of villifying a leftist. And while I can’t definitively prove it, the information that was made available to Ngo from that day in court read to me like it came directly from the victim, especially since there was no indication of any of his normal staff from The Post Millenial in the gallery with me.
Other statements made on the stand have not stood up to independent scrutiny. She claimed that she has been an activist for over 20 years, since she was a teenager, and that she has counter protested ‘both sides’. However, armed with a list of a variety of previous names, online personas and pseudonyms, the record of her activism seemed to go cold less than a decade ago. What events I could find showed a consistent conservative/right wing bend, with nothing but her lukewarm statements about police and a claim (with no supporting evidence in court and none that I could find) that Andy Ngo has written negative press about her. If anything, Ngo appears to be fawning over her from afar.
Even the events that I did find about her showed more than a casual bias in her causes for activism. In 2020, it was noted that she was involved with the organization of a ‘Back the Blue’ rally in downtown Portland, a rally that ended with Alan Swinney brandishing a pistol at a crowd of protesters, one of several charges that landed him a lengthy sentence in Oregon State Prison.
As a bonus side note: the interruption that was mentioned the first day of the trial ended up being admitted to by former ‘America First’ city council candidate and convicted harasser and unlawful mace user Brandon Farley. Farley tried to frame the intrution as a leftist operation to intimidate the judge, suggesting that it would backfire and Arajou would receive a stiffer sentence as retribution. But then he quickly admitted that it was him all along, including detailing an encounter he and I had outside the courtroom that no one else was there to witness. Farley has been working with Almosa on her ‘Where in the World is Ara America?’ YouTube channel.
The Palestine Refrain
The entire protest that started this case was a pro-Palestinian protest in complaint of a then-recent IDF attack on a Gazan hospital. Online, a common rejoinder to trans people expressing support for Palestinians is some variation of, “If you went there, Hamas would execute you for being trans.” It’s true that LGBTQ+ rights in Palestinian territories are severely limited. Gaza operates under laws influenced by conservative interpretations of Islamic law, while the West Bank retains parts of British Mandate-era statutes.
But the legal and cultural patchwork in the region predates Hamas, and it exists alongside decades of occupation, internal political division and humanitarian crisis. Under those conditions, survival often eclipses the advancement of civil rights. That doesn’t excuse the lack of protections for LGBTQ+ people — but it complicates the narrative.
Reducing an entire people’s struggle to their worst legal codes ignores the same nuance Al-Mosa’s statement ignores about religion. All three Abrahamic faiths have texts that can be — and have been — wielded as weapons against LGBTQ+ people. All three also have believers who reject that use. And just as faith traditions can evolve, so too can societies under strain.
Where to from here
While this chapter of the story is finishing after today’s sentencing, there is still more to the story. Almosa faces felony domestic violence charges in Clark County, Washington, where she is alleged to have lacerated her partner’s face badly enough that they face permanent disfigurement, and while domestic violence usually is outside of our wheelhouse, Almosa’s public figure status and her continued pressure against groups that she disagrees with (including groups, such as the LGBTQ+ community that, while she may not directly have made statements on, her supporters tend to have negative views on) makes the case worthwhile to at least observe.
I predict that Arajou will receive bench probation, with a restriction on attendance at ‘unlawful protests’ and restrictions on carrying defensive items at ‘lawful protests’, and a requirement to continue mental health treatment. Fines and fees likely waived, with a slight chance of community service. This would be in line with other similarly situated first time misdemeanor cases, while also taking note that Arajou will still be in harms way for an extended period of time.