MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — An Australian judge ruled Friday that anti-immigration party leader Sen. Pauline Hanson broke racial discrimination laws by rudely telling Pakistani-born Senator Mehreen Faruqi to go back to her homeland.

Faruqi sued Hanson in Federal Court over a 2022 exchange on social media platform X, then called Twitter, under a provision of Racial Discrimination Act which prohibits public actions and statements that offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate people because of race, color or national or ethnic origin.

Following the news that Queen Elizabeth II had died, Faruqi, deputy leader of Green Party of Australiaposted: “I cannot mourn the leader of a racist empire built on the stolen lives, land and wealth of colonized peoples.”

Pauline Hanson’s 70-year-old leader A Nation the party responded that Faruqi had immigrated to “show off” Australia and told the Lahore-born Muslim to return to Pakistan, using an expletive.

Hanson has been known for her views on race since her first speech to parliament in 1996, in which she warned that Australia was “in danger of being overrun by Asians” because of the nation’s indiscriminate immigration policy. Once he wore a burqa in the Senate as part of a campaign to ban Islamic veils.

Faruqi, a 61-year-old qualified engineer, moved to Australia with her husband in 1992 as economically skilled immigrants.

Judge Angus Stewart found that Hanson had engaged in “seriously offensive” and intimidating behaviour.

The post was racist, nativist and anti-Muslim, Stewart said.

“It’s a strong form of racism,” he said.

Stewart ordered Hanson to delete the offending post and pay Faruqi’s court costs. Stewart expected these costs “to add up to quite a substantial amount”.

Faruqi hailed the decision as vindication for “every person who was told to go back to where they came from. And believe me, there are too many of us who have been subjected to this ultimate racist insult, too many times in this country. Today’s ruling tells us that telling someone to go back to where they came from is a strong form of racism,” Faruqi told reporters.

“Today is a good day for black people, for Muslims and for all of us who have worked so hard to build an anti-racist society,” she said.

Hanson said she was “deeply disappointed” by the ruling and would appeal.

The verdict demonstrated an “inappropriately broad application” of the section of the Racial Discrimination Act she violated, particularly how that section affected free political expression, Hanson said in a statement.

Hanson’s lawyers argued that her post was exempt from the law because of constitutionally implied freedom of political communication.

Hanson said he considered the Queen’s death a matter of public interest and that Faruqi’s views on the death were also a matter of public interest.

Stewart found that Hanson’s tweet did not respond to any points made in Faruqi’s tweet.

“Sen. Hanson’s tweet was merely an angry ad hominem attack with no discernible content (or commentary) in response to what Senator Faruqi said,” Stewart wrote in his decision.

Stewart described Hanson’s testimony as “generally unreliable,” rejecting her claim that she did not know Faruqi’s religion when she posted.

Hanson told the court she had called for a ban on Muslim immigration in the past, but she described that as her personal opinion rather than the policy of her minor party.

She admitted that she once said in a media interview that she would not sell her house to a Muslim, but did not say whether she meant what she said.

Australia is an increasingly multicultural society. Australians born overseas or who have at least one foreign-born parent came of age in the most recent 2021 census.