Laura Loomer Claims Islamophobia Doesn't Exist At Twitter Protest

CHELSEA, NY — The far-right political figure who hand-cuffed herself to Twitter's office last November rallied a dozen people to protest the tech company's censorship of alt-right Twitter accounts.

Laura Loomer, an American Jewish right-wing political figure, protested across the street from Twitter's offices at W. 17th St. with a handful of other protesters with signs saying "stop the bias" and another with a blue bird inspired by Twitter's logo made to look like Hitler with a Nazi symbol on it. Around a dozen people were at the protest, half with cameras filming Loomer, who is criticized for being Islamophobic.

"We're here today to protest social media censorship and the bias carried out by big-tech social media companies like Twitter and Facebook, which are censoring and shadow-banning and de-platforming and silencing people everyday, but mostly conservatives," Loomer said Wednesday.

There was a permit for a 600-person protest, according to an email sent to employees who work in that building on Wednesday that a Vice News Tonight reporter tweeted. The NYPD did not immediately confirm a 600-person permit, but barricades lined both sides of the block at W. 17th St. and Eighth Ave.

Loomer cuffed herself to Twitter's Chelsea offices for more than two hours last November after she was removed from the social media website for saying that Rep. Ilham Omar of Minnesota is "anti-Jewish" and belongs to a religion in which "women are abused."

Loomer was also banned from PayPal this week and has previously been restricted from Venmo and GoFundMe. On Wednesday, she claimed Chase Bank shut down her accounts, which she believes is related to her anti-Muslim speech and right-wing political opinions. Chase did not immediately respond to questions.

Wednesday, she spewed similar views as she has previously, criticizing Islam while calling Omar anti-Jewish and said left-leaning American Jews suffer from "self-hatred" and "severe mental illness" for their criticisms of Israel.

"A lot of American Jewish people are mentally ill, and this is a mental illness in this country. To be a left-leaning Democrat and a Jew in this country — to be a Democrat Jew — is a mental illness as far as I'm concerned," she said when asked about how some American Jews may believe her beliefs perpetuate anti-Semitism and neo-Nazism. "Left-leaning Jews suffer from a form of self-hatred and severe mental illness."

When asked why she would criticize others for being anti-Semitic when she makes Islamophobic statements, she said she does not believe Islamophobia exists.

"I don't think that it is irrational for non-Muslim individuals to fear Islam," Loomer said. "By definition, there really is no such thing as Islamophobia, so I kind of laugh when people call me an Islamophobe."

Loomer's supporters on Wednesday included a fantasy novel author who identified himself as John Galt Guss, which is also his Twitter handle, and Adrienna Dicioccio, another right-wing figure. Dicioccio's father also attended in support of his daughter, he said.

Dicioccio, who describes herself as a journalist like Loomer, organized the "censorship awareness" protest in front of Twitter's offices and a 48-hour "log-off" that began Tuesday, according to her Twitter bio.

"Twitter should be advocating at a neutral standpoint and they're not," said Dicioccio, who said Twitter's algorithm is censoring her. "Our account is ours, our followers are ours, our likes are ours, our comments are ours. What's going on our accounts are ours."

Images credit: Sydney Pereira