An Australian teen smashed a raw egg into the back of an Australian lawmaker’s head in response to the lawmaker’s anti-Muslim comments.
Fraser Anning, the Australian lawmaker in question, is a right-wing senator from Queensland who was once a part of the anti-immigration group One Nation. Last Friday, following the New Zealand mosque shooting that left 50 dead, Anning issued a statement in which he both condemned the attacks and critiqued the Muslim religion.
“Let us be clear, while Muslims may have been the victims today, usually they are the perpetrators,” Anning claimed. “World-wide, Muslims are killing people in the name of their faith on an industrial scale.”
During a Saturday press conference in Moorabbin, Anning was speaking with reporters when 17-year-old Will Connolly began a recording on his phone and slapped an egg onto Anning’s head. Anning reacted by slapping Connolly twice in the face before being pulled back by another man. Anning’s supporters pushed Connolly to the ground, restraining him in a chokehold until police arrived.
“Don’t egg politicians,” Connolly reflected in a video filmed after the incident. “You’ll tackled by 30 bogans at the same time. I learned the hard way.”
Police took Connolly into custody but released him without charges.
According to a statement from the Victoria police, the incident “is being actively investigated… ‘in its entirety’ including the actions of the 69-year-old man and others.”
Connolly has since gone viral on social media with the hashtag #eggboy. Some have praised his response to bigotry and proposed nominating him as Australian of the Year while others have deemed his actions as only perpetuating violence.
Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison voiced his disapproval of Anning’s comments, stating that the senator would be censured.
“I would normally not want to give this any oxygen, but I want to absolutely and completely denounce the statements made by Senator Anning… on this horrendous terrorist attack, with issues of immigration, in his attack on Islamic faith specifically,” Morrison remarked.
