Australian court upholds racial discrimination ruling against Pauline Hanson

Australian populist leader Pauline Hanson racially discriminated against a Muslim senator in a 2022 tweet by telling her to return to Pakistan, a court has said, upholding an earlier ruling.The One Nation party leader had appealed a 2024 ruling that she had breached the racial discrimination act when she responded to a post by Senator Mehreen Faruqi with an "angry personal attack" that was "anti-Muslim".Hanson had argued at the Federal Court that political communication should be protected but Justice Melissa Perry dismissed her appeal on Monday."Today's win is for every single person who has been made to feel that their belonging in this country is conditional," Faruqi said outside court."This case was always about holding to account racism and holding to account those who perpetrate racism," she added. "hate speech is not free speech."On the day of the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022, Faruqi had offered condolences to those who mourned for the queen in a social media post. But, she added, "I cannot mourn the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonized people."Hanson responded with a post that was "a variant of the slogan, 'go back to where you came from'", Judge Angus Stewart ruled in 2024. The phrase was "a racist trope with a long history", and "implicitly" targeted Muslims, he said.He ordered Hanson to delete the tweet and pay Faruqi's legal costs.