Green Assembly Member Caroline Russell and Assembly candidate Benali Hamdache have helped win a campaign to ban adverts on the underground from regimes that threaten LGBT+ lives. Adverts promoting Brunei were removed from the underground after the Sultan of Brunei threatened to make being gay punishable by death, causing Green Assembly Members and activists to speak out. During the campaign, Benali led a large protest at the Dorchester Hotel, which is owned by the Sultan. Caroline has now successfully pushed for an end to any advertising from regimes that murder LGBT+ people. This incident followed the removal of adverts promoting body shaming.
New advertising scandals flared up recently, including a taxi app making a joke about sexual assault and a short-lets company encouraging landlords to throw out their tenants. The Green Assembly Member and 2020 Mayoral candidate, Sian Berry, has now asked the Mayor to sit down with her and review the whole way Transport for London regulates its advertising. Sian commented: “While it seems obvious that regimes that murder LGBT+ people should not be able to put propaganda on our public transport network, and that adverts that joke about assaulting women should be refused, these advert problems keep happening. The Mayor needs to take a serious look at the ethics of the messages we put in front of Londoners every day.”