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ANKARA:
An Australian senator who stands accused of passing racial remarks against a Muslim lawmaker was cross-examined for her Islamophobic views during a court hearing on Tuesday.
Pauline Hanson, leader of right-wing populist party One Nation, told a Sydney court she didn’t know that fellow senator Mehreen Faruqi was Muslim when she told Faruqi to “piss off back to Pakistan” on social media after the latter’s post on the passing away of Queen Elizabeth II, ABC News reported.
Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi has taken Hanson to the Federal Court over her social media post.
Faruqi had called for a treaty with First Nations and said she couldn’t mourn “the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised people”.
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Hanson, who was cross-examined by Faruqi’s counsel, said she also wasn’t aware that 97% of the Pakistani population are Muslims.
Faruqi’s lawyer played several videos in which Hanson expressed her views about migration, including a 2010 interview during which she said she wouldn’t sell her house to a Muslim and a 2017 press conference in which she described Islam as a “disease”.
When asked whether she had ever suggested a migrant from a white background should leave Australia, Hanson replied “I probably have”.
The hearing continues Wednesday.
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