Rep. Ilhan Omar condemns GOP state lawmaker's Facebook post
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Rep. Ilhan Omar has condemned a Republican state senator from North Dakota who posted a long-debunked photo on his Facebook page that purports to show the Minnesota Democrat holding a weapon at an al-Qaida training camp.
Omar, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Somalia and is one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, blasted state Sen. Oley Larsen's post, which also led to a call Tuesday from a top fellow Republican to apologize and relinquish a state Senate leadership position.
"This is pure propaganda designed to stir up hate and violence," Omar tweeted Monday night. "... Facebook's unwillingness to crack down on hate speech and misinformation is not just threatening my life, but our democracy."
The image Larsen posted has been debunked by several sources since it appeared on social media this summer. It's an Associated Press photo taken of a female Somali army recruit at a Mogadishu military training campus in 1978, four years before Omar was born in 1984.
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