US Congress to punish lawmaker over violent meme

The US House of Representatives is poised to punish a Republican lawmaker who tweeted a cartoon depicting him attacking Democrats with swords.

Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar faces a formal censure on Wednesday in the Democratic-controlled Congress.

It came after he posted then deleted an anime video that Democrats say promoted violence against President Joe Biden and a prominent House Democrat.

Mr Gosar has said the video was just a “symbolic cartoon”.

It comes just 10 months after supporters of Republican President Donald Trump stormed Congress in an attempt to block the certification of Mr Biden’s election victory.

Earlier this year Democrats stripped another Republican lawmaker, Marjorie Taylor Greene, of committee assignments for past remarks that included support for violence against Democrats.

Conservatives accused them of hypocrisy for taking no punitive action against a Democratic lawmaker, Ilhan Omar, who made remarks that were construed as anti-Semitic.

The House resolution, which was posted online on Tuesday, also calls for Mr Gosar to be removed from the Committee on Oversight and the Natural Resources Committee.

The 90-second video posted on 8 November featured an edited version of a Japanese anime cartoon interspersed with scenes from the US-Mexico border.

In one portion, characters whose faces were replaced by Mr Gosar and other prominent conservative Republicans were shown fighting other characters.

One character, who had been made to look like New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, was seen being hit in the neck with a sword. A character altered to look like Mr Biden was also seen being attacked.

In response, top Democrat Nancy Pelosi tweeted that “threats of violence against Members of Congress and the President of the United States must not be tolerated”.

Mr Gosar has denied the video was inciting violence.

In a statement, he said “the cartoon depicts the symbolic nature of a battle between lawful and unlawful policies and in no way intended to be a targeted attack against Representative Cortez or Mr Biden.

“It is a symbolic cartoon. It is not real life.”

Twitter added a warning label to the tweet, after determining it had violated the company’s rules on “hateful conduct”.

While attending the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, Ms Ocasio-Cortez called Mr Gosar “creepy” and described his tweet as a “fantasy video of him killing me”.

Mr Gosar has previously drawn scrutiny for spreading false information about the 2020 presidential election and appearing at a rally where a far-right activist spoke in favour of white nationalism.