Elham Asaad Buaras
A Muslim Australian politician was trolled with xenophobic and racist abuse after she tweeted that the Melbourne Cup was deadly to horses on November 5.
Dr Mehreen Faruqi was called a ‘maggot’ and told to go back to Pakistan after she tweeted a photo of a horse with the caption ‘Horse racing kills. This is CliffsofMoher who was killed for the sake of gambling by racing in the Melbourne Cup this afternoon #horseracingkills #nuptothecup’.
The Greens MP, who moved to Australia in 1992, received a barrage of abuse on social media following the death of Irish stallion The Cliffsofmoher.
The New South Wales politician, who is also the Green’s Animal Welfare Spokeswoman, was told to leave Australia by several social media trolls.
‘P*** off back to where you came from,’ one man wrote on her Facebook page.
‘Clearly, you have no intention to assimilate or embrace the culture that has dragged you into equality as a woman and provided you with a wage well beyond the slums of your homeland.’
The 55-year-old said she was targeted because of her skin colour, three months after telling the Senate ‘everyone’ who was not a white, straight male experienced ‘online harassment, bullying and toxicity’.
‘This is what happens when people of colour speak out on almost any issue,’ she tweeted.
Faruqi has posted a compilation of the vilest social media messages.
‘F*** of you filthy unelected foreign interloper,’ one man said of the lawmaker who in August filled Lee Rhiannon’s casual Senate vacancy. ‘P*** off back to your s***hole of Pakistan. Ya maggot.’
