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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 \u2014 a community that plays a significant and overwhelmingly positive role in Australian life.<\/p>\n
The senior figure\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
He argued that if women are forced to cover themselves completely, it signals that the family’s cultural outlook is incompatible with Australian values.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
These comments suggest her position has at least some sympathy within parts of the security and intelligence community.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Hanson argued, again, to ban the burqa in comments aired on Seven\u2019s Spotlight on Monday evening.<\/p>\n