(Adnkronos) – In Australia, the far-right senator Pauline Hanson, who entered the chamber yesterday wearing a burqa, has been sanctioned. Seven days of suspension, local media report, for the leader of the One Nation party, who is not Muslim and advocates for the burqa to be banned in public places. In proposing Hanson’s suspension, Penny Wong, Minister for Foreign Affairs, accused the senator of having “mocked and defamed an entire religion”.
Yesterday, criticism, controversy, and indignation led to the suspension of the session when 71-year-old Hanson, a senator from Queensland, effectively repeated a provocation already carried out in 2017, refusing calls to remove the burqa. This morning in the Senate, there were 55 votes in favor of sanctioning her, and five against.
On the Facebook page ‘Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party’, a post was published yesterday accusing senators of “hypocrisy” for blocking a proposal to ban the burqa. “If they don’t want Senator Hanson to wear it, ban the burqa,” the message read. In Australia, according to the latest official data from 2021, Muslims make up about 3.2% of the population, over 25 million people. Today in the chamber there are two Muslim women representing Australians, Mehreen Faruqi and Fatima Payman, the first to wear the hijab in Parliament.
