Indigenous Australian who confronted King Charles III says she won’t be ‘shut down’

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — An Indigenous senator has intensified her criticism of King Charles III, again accusing the British monarch of complicity in the “genocide” against Australia’s First Nations peoples and declaring on Wednesday she will not be “shut down.”

Sen. Lidia Thorpe’s comments followed an encounter with the monarch at a parliamentary reception Monday where she was escorted out after shouting at him for British colonizers taking Indigenous land and bones.

Despite facing political and public backlash, Thorpe was resolute in a television interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and said she would continue to press for justice.

“The colonial system is all about shutting black women down in this country,” Thorpe said from Melbourne. “For those that don’t agree with what I have said and what I have done, I can tell you now there are elders, there are grassroots Aboriginal people across this country and Torres Strait Islander people who are just so proud.”

“I have decided to be a Black sovereign woman and continue our fight against the colony and for justice for our people,” she added.

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Thorpe particularly highlighted the ongoing harm to Australia’s First Nations peoples, including holding on to the remains of Indigenous ancestors.

“I’m sorry, Charlie, but you can’t come here and think you can say a few nice words about our people while you still have stolen goods. You are in receipt of stolen goods, which makes you complicit in theft,” she said.

Thorpe also pressed on the endemic social disadvantage that Indigenous Australians continue to experience and that it was being papered over by platitudes that fail to address the systemic issues.

At the parliamentary reception, Charles spoke quietly with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese while security officials stopped Thorpe from approaching and ushered her from the hall.

Charles concluded his visit to Australia and traveled Wednesday to Samoa, where he will open the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.