Dominic Lorrimer / The Sydney Morning Herald
Senator Pauline Hanson enters the Australian Senate in a burqa
An Australian parliamentarian who has long supported a ban on the Islamic veil was suspended from parliament for a week following a protest on Monday, in which she entered the chamber with her body completely covered and refused to remove her veil.
The senator Pauline Hansonfrom the anti-immigration party One Nation, was accused of racism by several colleagues, after entering the Senate wearing a burqa.
Hanson described the gesture, which he repeated now for the second time in ten years, as a protest against refusal of the remaining senators to let her present a bill that would ban burqas and other full face coverings in public spaces.
Once inside the chamber, Hanson refused to remove her burqawhich led to the suspension of the Senate’s work for the rest of the day, says .
The protest sparked outrage among several senators. To leader two Australian Greens, Larissa Watersclassified it as a “cuff to people of faith”.
“It is extremely racist and insecure,” added Waters.
On Tuesday, the Senate approved, by 55 votes to five, a motion condemning Hanson’s actions as being intended to “defame and ridicule people based on their religion”, considering such actions “disrespectful towards Muslim Australians”.
Following the motion, Hanson was prevented from participating in 7 days of consecutive Senate sessions, which means that its suspension will remain in effect when parliament returns to work in February next year, after the end-of-year break.
Speaking to Sky News Australia, Hanson rejected the accusations that their protest had defamed or ridiculed Muslims.
“After all, this is Australia. This is not part of the Australian cultural way of life. I just want equality for all Australians and I don’t want to see the suppression or oppression of women in this country,” he said.
Hanson had already worn a burqa in Parliament in 2017but this week was the first time it was sanctioned for it. At the time, in 2017, he said that the objective was to draw attention to what he considered to be security issues associated with the play, which was linked to terrorism.
O Portuguese parliament approved in October in general a Chega bill aimed at invoking women’s rights and security issues.
The diploma proposes that it be “prohibited for use in public spacesof clothing intended to conceal or obstruct the display of the face“, with some exceptions. At the opening of the debate, Chega specified that the objective is to prohibit “women from wearing burqas in Portugal”.
The ban “does not apply” whenever the concealment of the face “is properly justified for health reasons or professional reasonsartistic and entertainment or advertising” and “concealment of the face will be permitted for reasons related to security or due to weather conditions or whenever this arises from a legal provision that allows it”.
The impediment also “does not apply to airplanes or in diplomatic and consular installations” and provides that faces “may also be covered in places of worship and other sacred places”.
