German pastor Wolfgang Sedlmeier hits out at Alice Weidel by donning a 'hijab'

A Catholic clergyman has sparked a furore after donning a hijab to demonstrate his outrage over people being discriminated against on religious grounds.

German pastor Wolfgang Sedlmeier won applause from a Pentecost congregation after hitting out at a politician.

He believed far-right AfD leader Alice Weidel had spoken in a ‘condescending and insulting manner of headscarf wearers’ in the Bundestag.

She recently blasted the German Parliament for being ‘governed by idiots’ as she spoke about immigration and other issues.

The MP said: ‘I can tell you burqas, headscarf girls… will not secure our prosperity, economic growth and especially the social state.

'Germany has become a borderless migration country for the unqualified and an emigration country for the highly qualified for a long time.’

This annoyed Sedlmeier so much that he put on a hijab at the end of his sermon at Marienkirche, in Aalen, where he is based as a pastor.

Those who discriminate against people who because of their religious beliefs choose to wear hijabs, ‘violate human dignity and thus [go] against the spirit of the Pentecostal gospel,’ he preached, according to online publication Schwabische.

The politician who sparked his action, Alice Weidel, above, posed an emoji showing tears of laughter at his reaction to her comments on immigration in Germany

His criticism was directed, he said, 'against a member of parliament, thus an elected woman, who spoke in a condescending and insulting manner in the Bundestag of headscarf wearers.'

Rottenburg bishop Gebhard Fürst immediately distanced himself from the protest, saying that he was ‘not very happy’ about the pastor's action.

Sedlmeier’s comments may have won applause from churchgoers, but on social media it attracted criticism, with one person posting on Facebook: ‘This Catholic priest defends the headscarf, which is a symbol of the oppression of women.’

But others countered that, saying: ‘The oppression of the woman takes place exactly where you want to forbid her to wear a headscarf or forbid her to be without a headscarf.’

The politician who sparked his action, Alice Weidel, posed an emoji showing tears of laughter.