As row grows including Australian Lidia Thorpe – Firstpost

Indigenous Australian senator Lidia Thorpe made global headlines on Monday when she challenged King Charles during his 16th official visit to Australia.

After the protest in parliament, which shocked lawmakers and other dignitaries gathered, the 51-year-old has sparked further controversy after a decapitated caricature of the monarch was posted on her social media and later removed.

Let’s take a closer look.

The cartoon controversy

On Instagram on Monday, Thorpe, an Aboriginal woman, shared a caricature of King Charles beheaded.

Drawn by Matt Chun, the image read: “You are not our king.”

Thorpe later removed the cartoon and clarified in a statement that the image had been shared without her knowledge and that it would not encourage violence.

“Tonight, without my knowledge, one of my employees shared an image on my Instagram stories created by another account, I deleted it as soon as I saw it. I would not intentionally share anything that could be seen to encourage violence against anyone. I don’t mean that,” he posted.

Thorpe is known for high-profile protest actions.

When she was confirmed as a senator in 2022, she was not allowed to describe the then-monarch as “Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s coloniser”.

He briefly blocked a police float at Sydney’s gay and lesbian Madri Gras last year by lying in the street outside.

Last year, she was also banned for life from a Melbourne strip club after a video emerged of her abusing male customers.

Read also:

Who is the Australian legislator Lidia Thorpe, who accused King Charles of genocide?

“You are not our king”

During his visit to the Australian parliament on Monday, Charles was accused of “genocide” by Thorpe.

He had finished speaking when Thorpe shouted that he did not accept Charles’s sovereignty over Australia.

“You are not our king. You are not sovereign. You have committed genocide against our people,” he shouted, adding: “Give us back the land. Give us what you stole from us: our bones, our skulls , our babies, our people. You destroyed our land. Give us a treaty.”

He was later prevented from approaching the king, who spoke calmly to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the podium but was otherwise unfazed.

Thorpe was then escorted out of the chamber.

“F**k the cologne. It was the cologne,” she said when she was taken out.

said Thorpe Breakfast with Kay Burley he maintained his actions. “We are the true sovereigns of this country,” he said. “The king lives in your country, he is from your country. He cannot be our king. We have our bones and our skulls still in the possession of his family. We want him back. We want our land back. And we want your king to take some leadership and sit at the table and discuss a treaty with us.

When asked why he called him a “genocide”, Thorpe said: “There are thousands of places of massacre in this country because of the invasion and someone has to answer for it. He is the successor, then he has to answer” .

Thorpe added that his outburst was “to tell the global truth about the royals who caused so much devastation, not only to your people in this country, but to Indigenous people around the world”.

Criticism

Several well-known indigenous activists have praised Thorpe’s stance, while others have denounced it.

Given its history, Bundjalung author and lawyer Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts argued there was “nothing more harmful or disrespectful” than inviting the monarchy to visit the nation first.

“When Thorpe speaks, she has the ancestors with her.”

Thorpe’s actions were denounced by former senator and Aboriginal leader Nova Peris, who stated that she supported the Aboriginal cause but refrained from “rude interruptions or public outbursts”.

“Senator Thorpe’s actions today do not reflect the ways or approach to reconciliation of Aboriginal Australians in general. They only reflect her, and it is important to make clear that the vast majority of us would not engage in this unconstructive confrontational manner.” wrote Peris to X.

“I would like to offer my sincere apologies to King Charles III and Queen Camilla on behalf of all those who value mutual respect and the dignity of our nation. When King Charles visited Yolngu Country in 2018, he was greeted with great respect and warmth for the traditional owners of the land, who honored him with a traditional ceremony. That moment exemplified the kind of engagement we need: one where respect is earned and given in equal measure,” his post said.

Aunty Violet Sheridan, an Aboriginal elder who formally welcomed King and Queen Camilla to Ngunnawal country, told Guardian Australia: “Lidia Thorpe doesn’t speak for me or my people, and I’m sure she doesn’t a lot. First Nations people.”

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott of the Conservative Liberal Party, who attended the event, told reporters it was “unfortunate political exhibitionism”.

‘Call for resignation’

According to Express UK, Thorpe’s outburst was deemed “disgusting and embarrassing” by Australia’s monarchists, who called for his resignation.

The Monarchist League of Australia is considering legal options to remove it from parliament, said Philip Benwell, the organisation’s national president.

“I was actually close to Lidia Thorpe and I could watch her every move. She is a person who openly declared, when she took her place in the Senate, that she would be loyal and would be faithful to the monarch. That she did it so that she could sit in the Senate it is not important.”

He added: “The fact is that for whatever reason he declared his loyalty to King Charles and yet now he has called the king in person ‘you are not my king’.”

With contributions from agencies