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.