Social Democratic Party MP apologizes after social media post targeting Russians
On Sunday, Züleyxa Izmailova (SDE), a member of the Riigikogu, made a social media post targeting Russians. She has since deleted the post and apologized for her poor choice of words.
On Sunday evening, Social Democratic Party (SDE) MP Züleyxa Izmailova made a post on the social media platform X in which she described negative experiences with people of Russian ethnicity.
In the post, Izmailova wrote that the Nõmme outdoor swimming pool was "packed full of Russians," adding that "old hags were smoking and some Vasya spat into the pool." She also described visiting a nightclub where people spoke to her "in their disgusting language," shared negative experiences with her apartment association and concluded the post by saying she was "sick and tired of the tibla mentality."
By midday Monday, Izmailova had removed the post from social media and published a new one in the afternoon, in which she apologized for her poor choice of words.
Izmailova explained that soldiers from the Soviet Army had killed her father in her birth city of Baku and that, after moving to Maardu, she often experienced disrespectful treatment as a representative of the Estonian-speaking minority. She added that her criticism was not aimed at an entire ethnicity but rather at a particular mindset.
ERR has reached out to both Izmailova and the chair of the Social Democratic Party, Lauri Läänemets, for comment, but had not succeeded in contacting either as of Monday.
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Editor: Barbara Oja, Marcus Turovski
