WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand legislators voted Thursday to enact record suspensions from Parliament for three lawmakers who performed a Māori haka to protest a proposed law.

Hana-Rāwhiti 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. Three days had been the longest ban for a lawmaker from New Zealand’s Parliament before.

The lawmakers from Te Pāti Māori, the Māori 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' action

See Full Page