(Photo by Ovidiu Hrubaru/Shutterstock.com)
Bella Hadid is asking her 31.5 million Instagram followers to share posts about where their parents were born “to remind them how proud you are of where you came from!”
The supermodel and humanitarian posted the message on the social media platform after it removed a post showing her father, Mohamed Hadid’s American passport which listed Palestine as his place of birth.
Bella received a message from Instagram saying the post was removed for violating guidelines on ‘harassment or bullying’ but she wasn’t having any of it:
“Instagram, exactly what part of me being proud of my father’s birth place of Palestine is ‘bullying, harassment, graphic or sexual nudity?'” she asks.
“Are we not allowed to be Palestinian on Instagram? This, to me, is bullying….You can’t erase history by silencing people. It doesn’t work like that.”
(Photo: @bellahadid/Instagram)
The famous Hadid sister has since re-shared a photo of her father’s passport with the caption, “I am proud to be Palestinian.”
According to Instagram, the post was not removed because of it’s reference to Palestine but rather because they don’t allow people to post personal information such as passport numbers.
In a statement to E! News, a spokesperson for the Facebook company says “In this case, the passport number was blurred out, so this content shouldn’t have been removed. We’ve restored the content and apologise to Bella for the mistake.”
Bella is using the moment to ensure her millions of followers always feel proud of their background, no matter where they’re from:
“I am proud to be Palestinian” she writes in an Insta story before urging her followers to also share where their mothers and fathers were born.
“Remind them how proud you are of where you came from!”