Student abused after exposing campus hate

A JEWISH student union officer suffered a barrage of antisemitic abuse on social media after tweeting a photo of a Hitler poster displayed on her campus.

Izzy Lenga, education officer at the University of Birmingham Guild of Students, posted a photograph of the poster — which showed an image of the Nazi leader with the words “Hitler was right” — in order to highlight the problem of antisemitism.

A few hours later she was being bombarded with antisemitic messages and images. One said “It will always be 1933 in my heart”, referring to the year the Nazis came to power in Germany.

Ms Lenga, 21, said: “The thing that upset me the most was that I wasn’t particularly shocked at the tweets I was receiving.”

She retweeted some of the messages “to expose the antisemites and to prove to those who often doubt the seriousness of antisemitism”.

Ms Lenga, who is

Izzy Lenga also a member of the National Union of Students National executive council, has reported the abuse to Twitter.

In a joint statement, the University of Birmingham and the guild of students said: “We unreservedly condemn the antisemitic posters found on campus in recent days and the vile abuse directed at Guild Officer Izzy Lenga on social media. We have reported the matter to West Midlands Police and are working with them to identify those involved.”

The police confirmed that they were aware of the abuse, and that no arrests had been made over the poster.

Ms Lenga has received support from Luciana Berger, MP for Liverpool Wavertree, who was herself a victim of online antisemitic abuse.

Ms Berger tweeted: “Been off Twitter most of this week, catching up to see the vilest, darkest abuse directed at izzyjengalenga.” Ms Lenga said that she had previously been targeted online after calling for a campus ban on the far-right group National Action at a NUS conference.