LONDON (Parliament Politics Magazine) -During the continuing Russian invasion of Ukraine, a Labour MP received a death threat referring to her as “Putin’s wh*re.”
Zarah Sultana claimed the remark was in an email she received that was “full of racist hate.”
In a statement, the MP for Coventry South said, that she had no doubt that this absurd and horrific attack was the direct result of incorrect media reports and deliberately misleading press comments,
This has created an environment that is putting public figures in active danger and threatening to narrow the democracy.
Ms Sultana was one of 11 current Labour MPs who signed a Stop the War declaration criticising NATO expansionism earlier this year.
The shadow chief whip wrote to these 11 MPs on Thursday, requesting that they retract their signatures.
They are all thought to have done so.
According to Ms Sultana’s statement, the BBC was obliged to issue an apology earlier this week after wrongly claiming she had “said NATO is responsible for the conflict in Ukraine.”
She went on to say that the original remark was “categorically incorrect.”
She, like all of her colleagues, is appalled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She stands with the Ukrainian people and has categorically criticised Putin’s actions; she despises his dictatorial, nationalist, and right-wing dictatorship, she said in a statement.
A well-known journalist recently referred to anti-war protesters as ‘fifth columnists,’ while a Labour MP implied that his colleagues were ‘Nazi apologists.’
Last night, an anonymous ‘Labour source’ suggested that Labour MPs were ‘a spokesperson for the Kremlin,’ while the Leader of the Coventry Conservatives labelled her an ‘agitator for Putin’s Russia.’
Ms Sultana went on to say that the allegations had passed the threshold from untrue to dangerous, referring to the recent deaths of two MPs, Sir David Amess and Jo Cox.
She added that she has reported the death threat she received today to the police and called the Labour Party chair to stress the seriousness of ‘party sources’ propagating dangerous and irresponsible remarks.
