Fatima Payman, a senator for the governing Labor Party in Australia, has resigned from the party after she rebelled over a vote on Palestine.
Payman had voted for Palestinian statehood in a vote in Australia’s upper house, against the position of the Labor Party. She crossed the floor to vote with the opposition Greens.
She has been ‘indefinitely suspended’ from the party and will now sit as an independent in the Senate.
Officially the Australian government backs a two-state solution in the Israel-Palestine conflict, but did not support the Senate motion as it had tried and failed to insert a clause saying the two-state solution should be ‘part of a peace process’.
Payman originally came to Australia as a child from Afghanistan in 1996, and is its first and only politician at federal level who wears a hijab.
At a press conference following her resignation, Payman said: ‘Unlike my colleagues, I know how it feels to be on the receiving end of injustice. My family did not flee a war-torn country to come here as refugees for me to remain silent when I see atrocities inflicted on innocent people.’