Google's search engine on Thursday honored an activist who once said she admired Osama bin Laden, while calling the United States the world's "main terrorist."
The
Google doodle featured a drawing of Yuri Kochiyama on what would have been her 95th birthday.
Kochiyama is featured in the doodle as a young woman when she was outspoken against America's treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II. She and her family were held in internment camps during the war in which Japan was an enemy and people of Japanese ancestry were eyed with suspicion.
She later befriended Malcom X, the controversial National of Islam minister and human rights activist.
Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, Kochiyama was a sharp critic of what she called the "aggressive" American military,
the Washington Free Beacon reports.
"I consider Osama bin Laden as one of the people that I admire," she said in an interview two years after the attacks. "To me, he is in the category of Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, Fidel Castro, all leaders that I admire.
"Besides being strong leaders who brought consciousness to their people, they all had severe dislike for the U.S. government and those who held power in the U.S. I think all of them felt the U.S. government and its spokesmen were all arrogant, racist, hypocritical, self-righteous, and power hungry," she said.
Google did not respond to the Free Beacon's request for comment, but its description of the doodle said it "features Kochiyama taking a stand at one of her many protests and rallies. Kochiyama left a legacy of advocacy: for peace, U.S. political prisoners, nuclear disarmament, and reparations for Japanese Americans interned during the war."
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