A self-styled socialist and anti-imperialist has sparked fury after tweeting a photograph of herself wearing a T-shirt featuring the logo of terror group Hezbollah.
Sophie Stephenson, from Edinburgh, Scotland, posted the photograph of herself wearing the garment in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Tweeting under the name "Sophie Geeking", she wrote: “Went out to dinner with my family tonight wearing a Hezbollah T-shirt.”
She clarified she was aware of Hezbollah’s status as a terrror group by later writing: “My sister: What’s that? Me: A terrorist group lol.”
In response to criticism Ms Stephenson, who is believed to have been reported to police over the post as a possible hate crime, wrote: “I have a flag too.”
Went out to dinner with my family tonight wearing a Hezbollah t-shirt. pic.twitter.com/5jql9H35S9
— Sophie (@SophieGeeking) July 1, 2017
Ms Stephensonhas shown her suppport for the Shia Islamist group in the past in a series of posts on her blog. She has also previously written anti-Israel essays and once used the hashtag #DeathtoIsrael after sharing an article on a car-ramming incident that left four dead in Jerusalem in January.
On Monday, with criticism of her photograph continuing, she took to Twitter again and wrote: “Can’t keep up with the amount of people telling me I support the killing of Syrians.”
Ms Stephenson has a Palestinian flag and bust of Karl Marx on her Twitter profile page.
Under UK legislation, the military wing of Hezbollah is proscribed as a terrorist organisation, but the political wing is not. However, the organisation has just one flag.
Besides its attacks on Israel, Hezbollah has committed atrocities against Jews in other countries. The group bombed a Jewish community centre in 1994, killing 85 people and injuring hundreds.
The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, has called Jews "Allah's most cowardly and avaricious creatures. If you look all over the world, you will find no one more miserly or greedy than they are”.
He has also been quoted saying that "if they [the Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide”.
- This article has been amended
