Chrystia Freeland Holds Neo-Nazi Scarf at Ukraine Rally

A photo was caught of Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland at a Ukraine rally over the weekend. In her hands? A red and black scarf of the Bandera movement, a neo-Nazi Ukrainian nationalist group.

Freeland, a Canadian of Ukrainian heritage, posted the photo before deleting it.

“Sanitized for your enjoyment,” Canadian musician Dan Boeckner wrote on Twitter, sharing a side-by-side comparison of Freeland’s posts before and after she deleted it.

The rally Freeland attended in Toronto also had red and black flags waving. Red and black have historically represented the Bandera movement, which was started by Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian politician during World War II who has been accused of war crimes against Jewish and Polish people.

The Ottawa Citizen reported that Freeland’s grandfather was the editor of a Nazi newspaper during WWII.

“Freeland can scrub her own social media to her heart’s content, but her photo holding the red and black banner is making the rounds on social media and is being used on other news sites, including NPR,” added True North’s Candice Malcolm . “This is a significant misstep by Freeland. Let’s see if anyone in the media notices or reports on it.”