Senator says she has been ‘viciously attacked’ by photographer Lana Slezic, whose image of Taliban victim Malalai Kakar Lambie used as anti-burqa propaganda

Palmer United party senator Jacqui Lambie says criticism of her use of an image of Afghanistan’s first female policewoman, Malalai Kakar, as part of an anti-burqa campaign is a “gross overreaction” and Kakar would have supported her view, knowing how easy it is to “conceal weapons or bombs” in a burqa.

Appearing on the ABC on Sunday morning, Lambie also repeated her call for people who believed in sharia to leave Australia, but struggled to explain what sharia was.

Lambie said she knew who Kakar was when she shared the image on Facebook of Kakar in a burqa holding a gun, edited with the caption: “Terror attack level: severe – an attack is highly likely. For security reasons it’s now time to ban the burqa.”

Kakar was shot by the Taliban in 2008 outside her home in front of her young son after campaigning for women’s rights and against extremism.

The photographer, Lana Slezic, criticised Lambie saying she was desecrating the memory of Kakar.

But in a statement released on Saturday night Lambie accused Slezic of “viciously attacking” her, saying her response was “an explosion of vitriol” and Kakar would have been “the first to agree” with Lambie’s anti-burqa campaign.

“As a police officer she would have known how easy it was to conceal weapons or bombs capable of killing large numbers of innocents under a burka,” Lambie’s statement said.

“She would have known how much safer it would be in public if the burka was banned. This story is a disgusting, unprofessional beat up – which will embolden and put a smile on the faces of the sharia extremists.”

Lambie said her Facebook post honoured Kakar and her “deadly struggle against brutal thugs and extremists”.

“This policewoman fought for freedom against the sharia extremists – so I would have thought part of her fight, was for the right for Afghan women not to wear a burka,” she said.

“If there was a reason why this brave woman was shot, my guess is that it was because she chose to defy the sharia extremists and submit to their threats - and dressed without their burka.”

On Sunday Lambie called Kakar a “bloody hero” and said she did not regret sharing the image.

Asked on the ABC’s Insiders program if she thought the image was menacing, Lambie replied: “Absolutely not. What that woman was trying to do for other women and to be gunned down by the Taliban is extreme, but this is one hell of a heroic woman out there and people should know her story and be very aware of what she was doing every day for the women of her country.”

Lambie said the banning of the burqa was a national security issue and called for people who believe in sharia to “get out” of Australia.

Lambie said of sharia: “it obviously involves terrorism. It involves a power that is not a healthy power.”

Asked in what way it involved terrorism, Lambie replied: “Well, I just think sharia law, you get it mixed up in, well, if you are not going to show, if you are going to be a supporter of sharia law and you are not going to support our constitution and allegiance to our constitution and Australian law, then, you know.”

Lambie said moderate Muslims could not pick and choose tenets of sharia to follow and they had a choice between it or the Australian constitution.

“It is one or other. You can’t have 50-50,” she said.

Lambie said she did not have a problem with Muslims, only with extremists and sharia.

“There is an issue right now. I want to see their full allegiance, not 50%, to the Australian constitution and Australian law. It is one law for all. That is the Australian law full stop,” she said.

The Facebook post using Kakar’s image was originally made by the far-right UK party Britain First, without the permission of Slezic, who has tried to contact both the party and Lambie to ask them to take down the image.

The picture was taken in 2005 as Kakar prepared to head out on a mission to free a kidnapped teenager, throwing a burqa over her Afghan national police uniform at the last minute.

“This is not what I wanted for this photograph,” Slezic said. “To see an image of her and all she still represents used this way is such an insult to her and her family and all the women in Afghanistan. I don’t even have the words to describe it.

“Here’s a woman whose life was taken by terrorists, extremists in the most horrific way,” Slezic said. “She died in front of her son, shot to death outside her home on her way to work.

“Everything she stood for, everything she fought for, for herself, her family, her daughters and future of her country, everything has been desecrated by how Jacqui Lambie and Britain First have used this photograph.

“I’m outraged actually [that] they would steal a photograph without any sort of consent.”

Kakar spoke about the burqa as offering her “protection” in a documentary before her death.

“I am not forced to wear the chaudari [burqa], my husband or the police force does not require it. I want to wear it because it gives me advantages,” she said. “I wear it to protect my family and myself.”

In her statement Lambie also criticised the ABC for quoting Slezic. “Anyone reading the ABC story could be forgiven for thinking it was me who gunned down the Afghan policewoman,” she said.

“I wonder what background briefing this ABC reporter gave to this photographer?”