Green councillor’s portrait pulled from Hackney website after keffiyeh complaint
A newly elected Green party councillor’s official portrait photograph has been removed from the Hackney Council website after a complaint from a legal advocacy group about her wearing of a keffiyeh in the photograph.
Cllr Brenda Puech, who was elected to represent London Fields in May’s local elections, had her portrait photograph taken down on Monday following representations from UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI). The image showed her wearing the patterned black and white cotton scarf, which has evolved into an international symbol of Palestinian nationalism and solidarity.
The councillor’s name and surgery times remain on the council website. A blank rectangle now sits where the photograph used to be.
‘Too offensive to publish’
Responding to the removal on Monday, Cllr Puech wrote on X: “A blank space on @HackneyCouncil website where my mugshot used to be! Fortunately I can still publicise my surgery times, though photo below is too offensive to publish. You now need refer to UKLFI media to see what I look like as they are quite happy to show the offensive image.”
She also reposted a comment describing UKLFI as “a threat to democracy and our way of life” and calling for the group to be proscribed.
The complaint
UKLFI said in a statement that the portrait “was causing distress to at least one Jewish resident of the borough”, and described the keffiyeh as “a divisive political symbol which many Jewish and Israeli residents associate with hostility towards Israel and, in some cases, with terrorist organisations and antisemitism”.
The group has previously filed complaints over the wearing of the scarf in other public-facing settings, arguing that it can cause alarm and distress to Jewish people, particularly since the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023, in which 1,195 people were killed, 828 of them civilians. Critics of the keffiyeh argue that its adoption by Hamas fighters has made it an emblem of the proscribed group.
Mayor distances herself
In a statement to the Hackney Citizen, the Mayor of Hackney, Zoë Garbett, said: “I want to be very clear that neither Cllr Puech or myself, nor anyone else in the Green councillor group, were part of the decision to remove the picture.
“I appreciate that many people are alarmed by this. It was a decision taken by officers, and one that has led me to raise my concerns.”
Hackney Council did not respond to a request from the Citizen for comment on whether the photograph would be reinstated.
I had one of these scarves when I was an art student in the 1980s. It was a ‘fashionable’ item worn by many students, most of whom knew little or nothing about the political situation in Gaza, & the annexation of Palestinian land by Jewish settlers.
So now they are telling us what we can and cannot wear . This is a normal piece of clothing worn by many Muslims all over the world and it is a racist attack on millions of people. Personally I get very distressed when I see jewish people dressed up in their outfits because it reminds me of dead children . Come on Hackney . Grow a pair . This is an attack on our democracy from a hostile power. And this group of lawyers are currently on official notice so just counter attack back .
I’m not the biggest fan of the Greens; I split my vote between Labour and the Greens. But objectively, this whole situation is a bit bizarre.
The Greens campaigned heavily on Palestine and presented themselves as willing to take a firmer stance than Labour. Yet now, with control of the council, we’re hearing the familiar line that officers made the decision and that policies and procedures must be followed, and national guidance says so and so. Labour said the same thing in response to demands to divest.
I appreciate the argument that the council may want to avoid litigation or complaints. But did anyone seriously think groups like UKLFI would simply sit back and not challenge pro-Palestinian gestures or decisions? Legal and political pushback was always going to be part of the equation.
And… over a picture on the councils website. Why is Hackney Council not allowing me to see my local councillor because some organisation says a keffiyeh incites hatred (of which no other legal definiton agrees)
If you are elected on these issues, voters reasonably expect you to stand by them when they’re controversial, not only when they’re cost-free. Otherwise, the distinction between the Greens and the Labour politicians they criticised starts to look a lot less clear.
oh for chrissakes…
yes, as we always say in this borough: it matters not for whom you vote, hackney fffing council always gets in…
and frankly, if mayor grabbit can’t get a grip on her feral admin-officers, how the blazes is she gonna put the puffin’ posse in the repair-department under manners?
notes on non-compliance with neo-liberal order:
1. given its mission is to bestow legal justification upon all israeli military action, uklfi is clearly a pretty radical organisation, by any democratic measure.
2. oh jeez, when the religion of zero-tolerance met the religion of net-zero…
…where can we buy tickets?
3. i’m sure, given the historically close and co-operative community-relations which exist between palestinians and jews in, for example, hackney’s cazenove ward, that the majority of stamford hill’s synagogue-going residents could not give two flying fancy-dressed sausages about gratuitous keffiyeh-wearing in the high hipster-heaven of london bloody fields.
4. ms tosley-nash is spot-on, of course: for most westerners, adornment in the keffiyeh is simply a trendy political affectation, and will hardly have members of the idf widdling in their bother-boots – save through uncontrollable laughter; i should confess that, being once a derogated follower of fashion, even i used to wear a neckscarf during the 80s, but not an actual keffiyeh – just a check one my nanna had bought me for christmas.
4. when resubmitting her official photo, i’m afraid there’s only one reasonable course of action to be taken by the contrary councillor puech: she’s just gotta go the whole hog and adopt the full niqab – i mean, she’s not exactly a looker, now is she?
5. given that the fascion-conscious fr*gs are itching to burn every scarf they deem ‘degenerate’ upon a huge bonfire of unsocial ideologies, i find councillor puech to be rather progressive.
what happened to hackney, bwoy?
s’a bit friggin’ dry these days, init?
is the wearing of union-jack scarves permitted within the council chamber?
is the wearing of union-jack scarves permitted within the borough’s borders?
does hackney council permit the wearing of oshankas, cossacks, kubankas, or papakhas within the council chamber or within the borough boundary?
is councillor putch allowed to wear union-jack knickers, t-shirts etc?
do saris and traditional african costume consitute politically permissible attire in downtown hackney?
i consider that council-clarification concerning the above-mentioned issues should be made a top-priortity.
and what about weirdo home-made hairdos? should they be allowed out in public?
god, i hate pink, myself…
…reckon it should be listed as a proscribed colour, in my honest opinion.
excuse me, madam…that cut cost £50 at the barber’s.
you got ripped-off, darlin’.
when it grows out, you’ll look like a chintzy lampshade in a bric-a-brac shop.
sorry, did i call the councillor ‘putch’? i meant ‘putsch’.
did i say ‘consitute’? i meant ‘constitute’.
do i care about crypto-neocon councillors wearing kefir? no i do not.
are posh bitch councillors bickering-on about fashion-choices, whilst schoolchildren kill each other with two-foot-long effing swords? what’s new?
hackney never changes.
let’s talk about lovely left-wing ltns, consciously designed as a mugger’s paradise complete with eco-friendly planters…
but let’s not talk about how – following butcher-biden’s neo-imperialist lead – prime ministers starmer, johnson, and sunak insidiously trained m23 blood-mineral-militiamen, in sandhurst, to commit unending, village-massacring, refugee-camp-shelling genocide in occupied eastern congo – and did so in order that the eu-orchestra of pan-african oppression might progressively rape africa of its mineral riches, and all human hope, in the noble neo-colonial cause of supplying apocalypse inc with the capitally cheap components required for its die-phones.
no, let’s not talk about the evil neo-liberal example being set, by our ‘progressive’ gangsta-government, to our skill-free and fatally impressionable youth.
let’s talk about rejoining the cia-controlled european union, and how doing so will enable our vampire-establishment’s ever more intimate investment in the banging business of industrialized black death, in a manner identical to that bravely pioneered by the royal african company of great british slave-traders – the bloody best in the world…
but let’s not talk about the cia–mi6 organized overthrow, in 2014, of the elected ukrainian government by far right nationalist nazi-adulating white supremacists, whom our western governments subsequently armed, trained, and sent to war against russia – following precisely the same playbook used by the british and american governments, during the second world-war, to send hitler’s nazis to war against the soviet union.
no, let’s not talk about the 2 million now dead as a direct result of the vicious vanity-war painstakingly planned by secretary-of-state clinton with president obama, and then duly prosecuted by president biden, with the eager psycho-subservient support of prime ministers boris johnson, liz truss, rishi sunak, and keir starmer.
let’s talk about fake pandemics, fake climate-emergencies, and fake claims of russian aggression against europe.
let’s talk about fake fffing news, baby.
So when a party campaigns on a particular issue (I personally wore my free Palestine badge on every canvassing round for the Greens) and they are elected with that policy a group of lawyers object because it is “offensive” where do these people get off? See you in court.
Is the olive tree going to be their next target?
It’s a grocery shopping list of antisemitic fruit and vegetables. It started with watermelon.
London has recently adopted the olive tree as an ornamental plant in pots outside restaurants and homes.
But for Palestinians it’s a sacred tree and a symbol of pride and attachment to the land. The juice of its fruit, the liquid gold, is the main ingredient of their Mediterranean cuisine.
That’s why Jewish settlers thugs have been busy burning olives groves and uprooting trees older than the Zionist project in Palestine.
Hackney Votes Palestine told me not to vote Labour because they support genocide. Seems even the Greens can’t even tame the officers of Hackney Council.
Same logic, does the Green Party support the systematic supression of Palestine people and their symbols with this removal of pic? !!
As a Charedi Jew, I am worried that a Councillor is being denied to have her portrait on the Council’s website for wearing something of her choice. What next will a Charedi Jew be denied to have her or his portrait on the Council’s website for wearing something of their choice, even of other disagree with that type of cloth or wig being worn.
If A Councillor wears something that commands political action such as Free Palestine or boycott goods etc’ that would not be fair to be advertised on a publicly funded website .The choice of dress should not be denied even for a Councillor whilst performing civic duties.
paragraph 9 of my above comment is gobbledygook and should read as follows:
“let’s talk about rejoining the cia-controlled european union, and how doing so will enable our vampire-establishment’s ever more intimate investment in the banging business of industrialized black death, just as surely as joining the royal african company of great british slave-traders – the bloody best in the world – once benefited high gun-slinging society in this nation…”
those are mighty wise words, if i may say so, mr leibowitz.
given the historically close and constructive relations between hackney’s charedi jews and local palestinians, i daresay that many rabbis in stamford hill would not think twice about wearing a keffiyeh in solidarity with the palestinian oppressed – and in fact would only omit to sport it due to the fire-hazard posed by such neckwear whilst burning the israeli flag.
hackney has many profound social problems, yet political, cultural, and religious pluralism has always been one of this borough’s greatest strengths – and therefore what we definitely do not require here is out-of-borough extremists interfering in local community relations and attempting to stir up ethno-religious conflict where none existed in the first place.
mr anthony, due to my privileged ethno-religious position as a neutral observer of the interminable israeli-palestinian conflict, i am not obliged to take sides, and indeed, given the use of terrorism by both israeli and palestinian combatants, i simply cannot support either warring faction – equally, however, it is impossible to ignore the suffering and oppression of both palestinian and israeli non-combatants in this slaughter, and thus i see no crime in people showing simple solidarity with, and sympathy for, other non-combatant people, whether israeli or palestinian, who are tragically ensnared in this self-destructive, and in fact suicidal, political struggle.
until they renounce violence, neither side involved in the israeli-palestinian conflict will ever receive true international support, and of course, this conflict can never fully be resolved until the loss of palestinian land-rights – which arose as a result of israel’s inception – is properly addressed.
“not exactly a looker”…?
saying this of a woman is just mean, catty, uncalled-for, and frankly inaccurate, ms spice…
however, i cannot fault your appraisal of the worst goddamn bunch of war-criminals to contaminate our planet since the authentic atlantic slave-traders, nor your analysis of this crypto-neocon gang’s unashamedly murderous methodology, which basically consists in arming one tribe or country against another – in order to cultivate an apocalypse – and then – with the complicity of the corrupt regional actors consequently placed in regional power – creaming-off the contraband-candyfloss of continental resources – these being of the mineral kind today, rather than the human kind grabbed in the imperiously obscured past.
the compulsive carnal righteousness of slavery consumed a multitude of captured lives, yet many more millions died as a result of africa’s slave-producing conflicts than from the slow-burning brutality of slavery itself – and so, with the liberally licenced devotees of dumbed-down democracy none-the-wiser, the remorseless current of capital cruelty continues uncurbed, and unobserved, up to the nasty neo-colonial present.
ms puech is a lady of multi-national parts and wide professional experience: she is a hindi and urdu speaking irish citizen with an illustrious french name, who was originally educated in india, and whose aid-work – including work in road-safety – has taken her to zambia, southern sudan, west africa, kosovo, and albania; ms puech is a graduate of the london school of economics & political science and the new delhi school of planning & architecture, who holds degrees in architecture and in development economics & international development, and who has worked in london-based architectural practices, for which she currently provides advice as an independent access-consultant; in her capacity as the self-styled ‘parklet’-princess of hackney, ms puech has got herself into trouble with hackney council on a number of occasions, and as a cyclist, she had a serious accident when hit by a motorcyclist who jumped a red traffic light…
but she is still smiling – and being the redoubtable woman she evidently is, will, i’m absolutely sure, have no truck with the petty crew of cheap ambulance-chasing lawyers over at uklfi, who wish to take issue with ms puech’s, just possibly, provocative palestinian accoutrement.
i do not believe that we’ve heard the last of ms “parklet-princess” puech…
hmmm…really, sgt pepper?
ms “parklet-pain-in-the-ass” puech, more like…
ermmm…well, i know i’m no wittgenstein, yeah…but i have to disagree with you, mr leibowitz.
it’s the green council’s democratic right to promote policies upon which it stood for election, and in fact your comment desperately begs the question: why ain’t the green party hung an effoff great “free palestine” banner right across the front of hackney town hall, and used the council’s website to call for a boycott of israeli grapefruit?
now, of course, this is hackney, and a banner like that would probably soon get nicked by some old homeless person to use as a tent, and most people don’t like grapefruit anyway, but this is beside the point, because it’s the thought – of palestinian freedom – that counts, init…?
moreover, i’d love to see those fancy sharp-suited lawyers from uklfi try taking that banner down.
i mean, you know, well…if we’d elected the nudist party, then we’d expect its councillors to go around starkers, wunt we…?
an’ if they didn’t, we’d just stop paying our subs to the council tax office, right?
so yeah, what i’m trying to say is: are the greens all mouth?
the first paragraph of my last comment is badly expressed and should read as follows:
“mr anthony, due to my privileged ethno-religious position as a neutral observer of the interminable israeli-palestinian conflict, i am not obliged to take sides, and indeed, given the use of terrorism by both israeli and palestinian combatants, i simply cannot support either warring faction…
equally, however, it is impossible to ignore the suffering, and cascading concomitant oppression, which this politically pre-determined slaughter has inflicted upon palestinian and israeli non-combatants alike, and thus i see no crime in people showing simple solidarity with – and sympathy for – other non-combatant people, who – whether they be israeli or palestinian – have been tragically ensnared in this self-destructive – and in fact suicidal – pseudo-ideological struggle.
until they renounce violence, neither side involved in the israeli-palestinian conflict will ever receive true international support, and of course, this conflict can never fully be resolved until the loss of palestinian land-rights – which arose as a result of israel’s inception – is properly addressed.”
i apologize for making a terrible mess of the first half of my last comment, which would be infinitely more comprehensible were it to be written thus:
““not exactly a looker”…?
saying this of a woman is just mean, catty, uncalled-for, and frankly inaccurate, ms spice…
however, i cannot fault your appraisal of the worst goddamn bunch of war-criminals to disgrace and contaminate our planet since the authentic atlantic slave-traders, nor your analysis of this crypto-neocon gang’s unashamedly murderous methodology, which basically consists in arming one tribe or country against another – in order to cultivate an apocalypse – and then with the complicity of the corrupt regional actors consequently placed in regional power, creaming-off the contraband-candyfloss of continental resources – these being of the mineral kind today, rather than the human kind grabbed in the imperiously obscured past.
the compulsive carnal righteousness of slavery consumed a multitude of captured lives, yet many more millions died as a result of africa’s slave-producing conflicts than from the slow-burning brutality of slavery itself, and yet, despite billions being spunked on ostensible do-gooding in africa, the resource-rape there remains just as bloody as ever – because with the liberally licenced devotees of dumbed-down democracy none-the-wiser, the remorseless current of capital cruelty continues uncurbed, and unobserved, right-up to the nasty neo-colonial present.”
the brits do this sorta thing to irish folk, but i count myself lucky – because at least i’ve never had my photo censored.
oh dear, i know how the councillor feels.
right, let me be absolutely clear about this matter: the brits have always been in the unpleasant imperialist habit of restricting irish folk’s freedom of expression – and indeed, as an irishman, i once too suffered grievously from the great british curb on free speech – however i count myself quite lucky, actually – because at least i’ve never had a photo of my face censored.
Mr Leibowiez is talking nonsense when he says,
“If a councillor wears something that commands (!) political action such as free Palestine or boycott goods. That would not be fair to be advertised on a publicly funded website”
When it was made public in every leaflet and interview during the election and was voted in so it is public policy.
I think from now on whatever Britain wants to do it should ask the Zionists
The victim card has expired then they will complain why more and more people will become Auntie somatic. They are digging their own grave and let them stop spitting at Christians
Palestine will be free from the river to the sea, whether you like it or not