---
title: "Three Vancouver candidates describe online harassment targeting their race, religion and gender"
description: "Kareem Allam, Andy Lin and Iona Bonamis (陶思穎) spoke to The Tyee about hateful comments they have received on social media during the 2026 Vancouver municipal election campaign."
canonical_url: "https://voche.me/news/vancouver-candidates-online-harassment-september-25"
last_updated: "2026-09-26T00:50:31.290Z"
---

Three Vancouver 2026 municipal candidates described receiving hateful comments on social media targeting their race, religion and gender, in a reported article published by The Tyee on September 24. [Kareem Allam](/candidates/kareem-allam), running for mayor with the Vancouver Liberals, told The Tyee the level of Islamophobic and racist comments had gone beyond anything he had seen in years of political campaigning. [Andy Lin](/candidates/andy-lin) and [Iona Bonamis (陶思穎)](/candidates/iona-bonamis) each described their own experiences and how they have responded.

## What Allam described

Allam has worked on campaigns for current Mayor [Ken Sim](/candidates/ken-sim), former Surrey mayor Dianne Watts and former BC United leader Kevin Falcon, and told The Tyee he thought that experience had prepared him. He said the harassment intensified after high-profile Muslim American candidates won races in the United States and after he did a campaign interview with a Vancouver-based Muslim non-profit foundation. He said the comments included racist slurs and had affected his sense of belonging. "It had a much more profound impact on me and my sense of belonging, of my standing in my community, my own sense of self-perception and agency," The Tyee quoted him as saying. He told The Tyee that Vancouver Liberals candidates, including two new mothers, had also received harassment about their appearance, gender, religion and race.

## Lin's and Bonamis's responses

Lin, running for City Council with Bright Future Vancouver, told The Tyee he responds directly to hateful comments. He made a social media video calling on people to stop the hate and focus on election issues, and said responses bring more people to his posts about Bright Future Vancouver's platform. Bonamis, running for City Council with OneCity and whose ancestry is Chinese, told The Tyee she ignores hateful comments for the sake of her mental health. She said racist comments increased after she filed a court challenge to have her name appear in both English and Chinese characters on the ballot. Shortly before her interview, she found out the challenge had succeeded.

## What research has found

The Tyee cited a 2020 research paper from the University of British Columbia's Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions, which looked at tweets sent to federal candidates during the 2019 federal election. The paper found that 40 per cent of those messages were uncivil and 16 per cent were abusive. The researchers described online harassment as having a chilling effect on participation, making women and racialized people more likely to censor themselves online out of fear. All three candidates told The Tyee that the harassment they face discourages others from running for office.

## What a voter can do

The Vancouver municipal election is on October 17. If how candidates are treated during this campaign matters to you as a voter, the party pages and candidate profiles on this site list who is running for each office and what they stand for. Candidate profiles are at [/nominations](/nominations), and voting-day places and hours are at [/where-to-vote](/where-to-vote).

## Sitemap

See the full [sitemap](/sitemap.md) for all pages.