Two Green Party candidates were arrested this morning on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred after allegedly posting anti-Semitic comments online.
The Metropolitan Police detained the two women aged 54 and 57 in London under section 19 of the Public Order Act before taking them into custody for questioning.
The posts allegedly included messages such as ‘England has a government overrepresented with Zionists Jews’ and ‘Ramming a synagogue isn’t anti-Semitism. It’s revenge.’
It comes after it was reported last week that Saiqa Ali, who is standing for the Greens in Streatham, had apologised for posts she was alleged to made.
The reports of the apology included a post of an image of an armed man wearing a Hamas headband under the phrase ‘resistance is freedom’.
It was also reported that she posted a cartoon of a girl asking her mother ‘why won’t US politicians end the Gaza holocaust?’, with the reply: ‘Because Israel is blackmailing them with the Epstein files honey’.
Ms Ali was also accused of posting: ‘England has a government overrepresented with Zionists Jews’ and that US President Donald Trump is ‘owned by Jews’. It was further claimed she had described Prime Minister Keir Starmer as a ‘Jewish Zionist’.
Another post showed a snake with the Israeli flag printed on its skin wrapping itself around the globe with the comment: ‘It’s time to cut the head of this snake. #FreePalestine.’
Saiqa Ali, who is standing for the Greens in Streatham, was found to have allegedly posted an image of an armed man wearing a Hamas headband under the phrase ‘resistance is freedom’
Ms Ali also posted a cartoon of a girl asking her mother ‘why won’t US politicians end the Gaza holocaust?’, with the reply: ‘Because Israel is blackmailing them with the Epstein files honey’.
Saiqa Ali is standing for the Green Party in Streatham, South London
Sabine Mairey has been accused of posting anti-Semitic content online, including the above
Sabine Mairey is a Green Party candidate for Clapham Town in South London
In her apology, Ms Ali said she ‘unequivocally rejects anti-Semitism in all its forms’ and her ‘comments were rooted in concern for the humanitarian situation in the Middle East’.
Sabine Mairey, a candidate for Clapham Town, has also previously been accused of posting anti-Semitic content online.
One post allegedly included a picture of a man with a placard saying ‘ramming a synagogue isn’t anti-Semitism, it’s revenge’. This was above a picture of two children it says were ‘murdered by Israel’.
The Metropolitan Police has not confirmed the identifies of those arrested.
A spokesperson told the Daily Mail: ‘Police have arrested two women, aged 57 and 54, on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred online, an offence under section 19 of the Public Order Act 1986. They remain in police custody.’
‘The arrests follow an investigation launched after concerns were reported to police on Tuesday, April 21 about anti-Semitic material that had been posted online.’
And a Green Party spokesperson said: ‘This is now a police matter. We won’t be commenting at this stage.’
It comes after two Jewish men were stabbed yesterday in a terror attack in Golders Green, North London. A 45-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder.
Police across the UK have stepped up patrols in response to the double stabbing that saw two Jewish men – Shloime Rand, 34, and Moshe Ben Baila, 76 – taken to hospital.
