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New Zealand’s parliament has voted to suspend three M\u0101ori MPs for their protest haka during a sitting last year.<\/p>\n
Opposition MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, who started the traditional dance, was suspended for seven days, while her party’s co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer were banned for 21 days.<\/p>\n
The MPs did the haka when asked if their Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori or M\u0101ori Party, supported a bill that sought to redefine the country’s founding treaty with M\u0101ori people.<\/p>\n
The Treaty Principles Bill has since been voted down but it drew nationwide outrage – and more than 40,000 people protested outside parliament during the bill’s first reading in November last year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
We have been “punished for being M\u0101ori”, Ngarewa-Packer told the BBC. “We take on the stance of being unapologetically M\u0101ori and prioritising what our people need or expect from us.”<\/p>\n
There were tense exchanges on Thursday as the house debated penalties, with Foreign Minister Winston Peters being asked to apologise for calling Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori a “bunch of extremists” and saying the country “has had enough of them”.<\/p>\n
“We will never be silenced, and we will never be lost,” Maipi-Clarke, who at 22 is the youngest MP, <\/b>said at one point, holding back tears. <\/p>\n
“Are our voices too loud for this house \u2013 is that why we are being punished?”<\/p>\n