Australian senator in burqa row suspended

An Australian senator who is campaigning for a national burqa ban was barred Tuesday from Parliament for the rest of the year for wearing the burqa in the chamber.

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Pauline Hanson, the 71-year-old leader of the One Nation minor party, was accused of performing a disrespectful stunt on Monday when she walked into the Senate shrouded in the head-to-ankle garment to protest fellow senators' refusal to consider her bill that would ban the burqa and other full-face coverings in public places.

Senators suspended her for the rest of the day on Monday.

In the absence of an apology, they passed a censure motion on Tuesday that carried one of the harshest penalties against a senator in recent decades.