Swift from Smoke Boyz has had his image used without his permission in Australian anti-immigration propaganda.
The rapper who recently dropped his debut solo project Swiftionary in December appears in an image posted to Twitter by Fraser Anning who is currently the senator to the Australian state of Queensland.
The image shows a burning car, crowds and a photoshopped image of Swift along with the caption, “Dear Australians, If we are not careful we will end up like Germany, UK or even worse South Africa. We must stop importing dangerous third world criminals and deport the ones already here. Like and share if you agree we need an immigration crackdown now”.
See the controversial image below.
Swift took to Instagram and Twitter to express his anger and frustration at his image being misused and retweeted fans who suggested he sue the creators of the image.
The image used of Swift was taken by Dean Martindale for a spread in British magazine Notion. This is not the first time that an image of Smoke Boyz has been used in the wrong context for a negative agenda. The Daily Mail used an artistic image of the group as the title image for an article on gang warfare in Melbourne and were later called out by a Twitter account.
Check out the tweet below.
Fraser Anning is yet to respond to the backlash surrounding the use of Swift’s image. This latest scandal comes after the senator was recently condemned by Australian news outlets and his political colleagues for spending taxpayer money on his family’s personal travel arrangements and for attending a far-right rally described as “fascist” and “racist” by Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison.
Morrison condemned Fraser Anning for “associating himself with extreme and offensive racist views that have no place in our society”. Some attendees of the rally in question were accused of displaying Nazi salutes.