Australian judge rules senator broke race law by ordering rival lawmaker to return to Pakistan

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — An Australian judge ruled Friday that the leader of an anti-immigration party, Sen. Pauline Hanson violated racial discrimination laws by brutally ordering Pakistani-born Senator Mehreen Farooqi to return to her homeland.

Farooqi sued Hanson in Federal Court over communications that occurred in 2022 on social media platform X, then called Twitter, under the statutory provision. Racial Discrimination Act which prohibits public actions and statements that insult, insult, disparage, or intimidate people on the basis of race, color, or national or ethnic origin.

After the news that Queen Elizabeth II Faruqi, deputy leader, died Australian Green Partywrote: “I cannot mourn the leader of a racist empire built on the stolen lives, land and wealth of colonized peoples.”

Pauline Hanson’s 70-year-old leader One nation The party responded that Farooqi had immigrated to “gain an advantage” in Australia and told the Lahore-born Muslim to return to Pakistan, using expletives.

Hanson has been known for her views on race since her first speech to Parliament in 1996, in which she warned Australia was “at risk of being overrun by Asians” due to the country’s non-discriminatory immigration policies. She once wore burqa in the Senate as part of a campaign to ban Islamic face coverings.

Farooqui, a 61-year-old qualified engineer, moved to Australia with her husband in 1992 as skilled economic migrants.

Judge Angus Stewart found that Hanson had engaged in “seriously offensive” and intimidating behavior.

Stewart said the post was racist, nativist and anti-Muslim.

“This is a strong form of racism,” he said.

Stewart ordered Hanson to remove the offending post and pay Farooqi’s legal fees. Stewart expected these costs to “be quite a significant amount.”

Faruqi hailed the decision as a vindication for “every person who was ordered to return to where he came from.” And believe me, too many of us have been subjected to this blatant racist insult too many times in this country. Today’s decision tells us that telling anyone to go back to where they came from is a strong form of racism,” Farooqi told reporters.

“Today is a good day for people of color, for Muslims and all of us who have worked so hard to build an anti-racist society,” she said.

Hanson said she was “deeply disappointed” by the decision and would appeal.

The sentence demonstrated the “unjustifiably broad application” of the section of the Racial Discrimination Act she breached, particularly in the way the section impinges on freedom of political expression, Hanson said in a statement.

Hanson’s lawyers argued that her position was not covered by the law because of constitutional freedom of political communications.

Hanson said she believed the queen’s death was a matter of public interest and that Farooqi’s views on the death were also of public interest.

Stewart found that Hanson’s tweet did not address any of the concerns raised in Farooqi’s tweet.

“Sep. Hanson’s tweet was simply an angry ad hominem attack, devoid of discernible content (or commentary) in response to what Senator Farooqi said,” Stewart wrote in his decision.

Stewart described Hanson’s testimony as “generally unreliable,” rejecting her claim that she did not know Farooqi’s religion when she posted the messages.

Hanson told the court she had called for a ban on Muslim immigration in the past, but described this as her personal opinion and not the policy of her minor party.

She admitted that she once said in a media interview that she would not sell her house to a Muslim, but did not say whether she meant what she said.

Australia is becoming an increasingly multicultural society. Australians born overseas or with at least one parent overseas made up the majority in the latest 2021 census.