New Zealand Hands Haka Protesters Record Suspensions

New Zealand legislators voted Thursday to enact record suspensions from Parliament for three lawmakers who performed a Maori haka to protest a proposed law. Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke received a seven-day ban and the leaders of her political party, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi, were barred for 21 days, reports the AP. Three days had been the previous longest ban for a lawmaker from Parliament. The lawmakers from Te Pati Maori, the Maori Party, performed the haka, a chanting dance of challenge, in November to oppose a widely unpopular bill, now defeated, that they said would reverse Indigenous rights. The protest drew global headlines and provoked months of fraught debate among lawmakers about what the consequences for the lawmakers' actions should be and the place of Maori culture in Parliament.

• Why the punishment was so strict: A committee of the lawmakers' peers in April recommended the lengthy bans. It said the lawmakers were not being punished for the haka, but for striding across the floor of the debating chamber toward their opponents while doing it. Judith Collins, the committee chair, said the lawmakers' behavior was egregious, disruptive, and potentially intimidating. Maipi-Clarke, 22, rejected that description. "I came into this house to give a voice to the voiceless. Is that the real issue here?" Maipi-Clarke asked Parliament. "Are our voices too loud for this house?"
• Why this haka was controversial: Some who decried the protest haka in Parliament cited its timing, with Maipi-Clarke beginning the chant as votes were being tallied and causing a brief suspension of proceedings. She has privately apologized for the disruption to Parliament's Speaker.
• Who approved the suspensions: One party in the government bloc wanted even longer suspensions and had asked the committee if the Maori lawmakers could be jailed. Every government lawmaker voted for the punishments, while all opposition members voted against them.