Australian judge rules senator broke race law by telling rival legislator to return to Pakistan

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — An Australian judge ruled on Friday that anti-immigration party leader Sen. Pauline Hanson breached racial discrimination laws by crudely telling Pakistan-born Sen. 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, color 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 Lahore-born Muslim 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 warned 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 Islamic 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 behavior.

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