Australian court rules in favour of racially discriminated Muslim senator

Senator Mehreen Faruqi was asked by Senator Pauline Hanson to go back to Pakistan after she refused to mourn the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

Mehreen Faruqi (pictured) has filed a lawsuit against Senator Pauline Hanson, known for her controversial views on race since her 1996 maiden speech in Parliament, where she warned that Australia was “in danger of being swamped by Asians.” / Photo: AP
AP

Mehreen Faruqi (pictured) has filed a lawsuit against Senator Pauline Hanson, known for her controversial views on race since her 1996 maiden speech in Parliament, where she warned that Australia was “in danger of being swamped by Asians.” / Photo: AP

An Australian judge has ruled that anti-immigration party leader Senator Pauline Hanson breached racial discrimination laws by crudely telling Pakistan-born Senator Mehreen Faruqi 'to return to her homeland.'

Faruqi sued Hanson in the Federal Court over a 2022 exchange on the social media platform X, then called Twitter, under a provision of the Racial Discrimination Act that bans public actions and statements that offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate people because of their race, colour or national or ethnic origin.

Following the news that Queen Elizabeth II had died, Faruqi, deputy leader of the Australian Greens party, posted:

“I cannot mourn the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonized peoples.”

The 70-year-old leader of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party replied that Faruqi had immigrated to take “advantage” of Australia, and told the Muslim Senator to return to Pakistan, using an expletive.

Hanson has been known for her views on race since her first speech to Parliament in 1996 in which she claimed Australia was “in danger of being swamped by Asians” because of the nation’s non-discriminatory immigration policy.

She once wore a burqa in the Senate as part of a campaign to have Muslim face coverings banned.

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

Justice Angus Stewart found that Hanson had engaged in “seriously offensive” and intimidating behaviour.

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

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

Stewart ordered Hanson to delete the offensive post and to pay Faruqi’s legal costs. Stewart expected those costs would “amount to a fairly substantial sum.”

Faruqi welcomed the ruling as a vindication for "every single person who has been told to go back to where they came from. And believe me, there are too many of us who have been subjected to this ultimate racist slur, far too many times in this country.

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Racial Discrimination Act

The verdict demonstrated an “inappropriately broad application” of the section of the Racial Discrimination Act that she had breached, particularly in how that section impinged upon freedom of political expression, Hanson said in a statement.

Hanson’s lawyers claimed that her post was exempt from the law because of constitutionally implied freedom of political communication.

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

Stewart found that Hanson’s tweet did not respond to any point made in Faruqi’s tweet.

“Sen. Hanson’s tweet was merely an angry ad hominem attack devoid of discernible content (or comment) in response to what Sen. Faruqi had said,” Stewart wrote in his decision.

Stewart described Hanson’s testimony as “generally unreliable," rejecting her claim that she did not know Faruqi’s religion when she posted.

Hanson told the court she had called for a ban on Muslim immigration in the past, but she described that as her personal opinion rather than her minor party’s policy.

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

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