Two of the United Kingdom’s Green Party candidates have been arrested on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred after posting antisemitic comments online, the Telegraph reported on Thursday.
Metropolitan Police officers arrested candidates Saiqa Ali and Sabine Mairey on Thursday morning.
Ali had multiple antisemitic posts on her Instagram, including a photo of an armed man in a Hamas headband beneath the words “resistance is freedom,” and above the caption “Long live the Resistance.”
Another features a cartoon in which a young girl asks, “Why won’t US politicians end the Gaza Holocaust?” The answer given by her mother is “Because Israel is blackmailing them with the Epstein files, honey.”
Ali also posted several now-deleted Facebook posts where she blamed the 9/11 attacks on Israel and claimed that the government was oversaturated with “Zionist Jews.” Another post featured an AI-generated Jewish caricature captioned “Don’t you know the rules? We went through the Holocaust, and now we get to kill everyone, forever!”
Mairey posts man labeling the ramming of a synagogue 'revenge'
Mairey has posted an image of a man holding a sign that reads “ramming a synagogue isn’t anti-Semitism, it’s revenge,” above a picture of two children captioned “murdered by Israel.”
Mairey also implied that Israel’s actions were worse than those taken by Nazi Germany, with a picture of Auschwitz, which said the Nazis “had to hide what they were doing.”
Both candidates were taken into custody for questioning under Section 19 of the British Public Order Act, the Telegraph reported.
Ali has previously apologized for the offense caused by her social media, saying she “unequivocally rejects antisemitism in all its forms.”
“My comments were rooted in concern for the humanitarian situation in the Middle East, and I remain committed to speaking with care, responsibility, and respect for everyone,” Ali said.
The Green Party has denied rumors that its leader, Zack Polanski, was planning to campaign with the candidates on Thursday.