Abetz and Bernardi attack ABC over Abdel-Magied show

Cory Bernardi has taken a swipe at ABC’s new program and Eric Abetz has accused the ABC of ‘championing an oppressive symbol’.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied will host a show about Australia's hijab fashion scene. Picture: Twitter

The ABC has come under attack from conservatives over its plan to run a hijab fashion program from controversial Muslim commentator Yassmin Abdel Magied.

Hijabistas! with Yassmin Abdel-Magied will air on ABC iView on May 1, as six six-minute episodes, and follows Ms Abdel-Magied through Australia’s Islamic headwear fashion scene.

The national broadcaster’s Islamic fashion show comes months after the Department of Foreign Affairs came under pressure from conservatives for sponsoring a “modest fashion” show aimed at Muslim women in Malaysia. Ms Abdel-Magied will return to the public broadcaster nearly a year after her ABC News program Australia Wide was scrapped following nationwide backlash over an Anzac Day Facebook post last April which read: “Lest We Forget (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine ...).” The ABC said at the time that the Anzac Day controversy was not the reason it axed Ms Abdel-Magied’s program.

Ms Abdel-Magied, who is now based in London, tackled her critics on Twitter after announcing the hijab program.

“I love when ppl (sic) see things like this (her new show) then point to unrelated things happening to Muslim women in other countries, as if they actually cared,” she wrote.

Liberal senator Eric Abetz urged the ABC to reconsider airing the program, arguing the hijab was an “oppressive symbol”.

Protests against the theocratic regime in Iran early this year involved women publicly removing Islamic headwear, which is compulsory in the country.

“While hundreds of thousands of women have bravely protested in the face of arrest and imprisonment ... to be freed from the oppression of the hijab, we have the ABC championing this oppressive symbol,” Senator Abetz said.

Australian Conservatives leader Cory Bernardi said the ABC needed to be reformed and called Ms Abdel-Magied an “anti-Australian Islamic apologist”.

An ABC spokesman said the show was a “light-hearted exploration” of hijabi fashion that was in keeping with ABC editorial policy.