A senior figure in Australia’s intelligence and security community has argued that immigration should be restricted for families in which women wear full-face coverings, in comments that echo Pauline Hanson’s long-running campaign against the burqa.
The official, who spoke on a confidential basis, said restricting intake on national security grounds for families in which women wore the niqab was a more logical step than banning immigration from Muslim countries.
The issue arose when the senior and highly-respected individual was questioned on whether a migration lens could be applied to the lessons learned from the Bondi Beach terror attack given that the alleged gunman Sajid Akram had migrated from India — a community that plays a significant and overwhelmingly positive role in Australian life.
The senior figure’s response, in an interview for our upcoming book Bondi Terror, was that there is a case for authorities to stop migration not by religion but for families where the women are wearing full coverings.
He argued that if women are forced to cover themselves completely, it signals that the family’s cultural outlook is incompatible with Australian values.
He argued such families are more likely to believe in the hardline Sharia law, to reject equality for women and to interpret their religion in an extreme or literal way.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has long campaigned for a ban on the burqa, famously wearing the Islamic shroud into the Senate chamber in 2017 and again last year.
These comments suggest her position has at least some sympathy within parts of the security and intelligence community.
It comes amid intense national debate over immigration, integration and radicalisation following the December 14 attack, in which Sajid Akram, 50, and his son Naveed Akram, 24, allegedly opened fire on a Chanukah celebration at Bondi Beach, killing 15 people in Australia’s deadliest terror attack.
Hanson argued, again, to ban the burqa in comments aired on Seven’s Spotlight on Monday evening.
Pre-order the book Bondi Terror, by Sharri Markson and Alex Ryvchin here.