BRISTOL MUSLIMAH ABUSED IN CITY CENTER

Bristol, 21 Ramadan 1435/19 July 2014 (MINA) – A bright A-level Muslim student has been racially abused and spat at in one of the busiest streets in the city center with no one interfering to defend the hijab-clad girl, leaving her with feelings of humiliation and loss of trust.

“It was a cowardly thing to do, which totally humiliated the girl,” Lawrence Hill ward councillor Hibaq Jama, who has been supporting the family. Onislam quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

“One of the appalling aspects about this was that no one went to help the girl. I would like to think that most people who see a child being abused in public would do something, even if that is just call the police.”

The girl, who has asked not to be named, was walking in the city centre along Corn Street wearing a headscarf when a man approached and started hurling insults at her asking her to go to her birth place, though the girl was born in Bristol and never lived outside the city.

Though the girl did not respond to him, the situation got worse as the man began spitting in her face and all over her clothes and school bag.

Bristol’s first Somali-born councilor, Jama said the girl had been quiet and withdrawn since the incident and had suffered considerable emotional and psychological distress.

“We’re talking about a very bright girl who was doing well with her A levels, who was outgoing, happy, friendly, who now is concerned about being alone in Bristol’s public places,” she said.

“She was picked on because she was wearing a headscarf. As if somehow wearing a headscarf ought to single someone out as a foreigner. This has lead to many of her friends who also wear headscarves to be worried about being alone in public.”

Hoping that the terrible incident is an isolated one, ward councilor Margaret Hickman expressed concerns over a similar attack that targeted a young boy recently.

“It is a very deep and complex problem. I heard of a young Muslim boy being told by some others in the school playground that he couldn’t play with them because he was ‘different’,” Hickman said.

“I was speaking to a resident the other day, a white woman who was annoyed about a group of young Somali men making a lot of noise late at night. She said, ‘I’m not a racist, I just don’t want the anti-social behavior to continue’ but she’s afraid of doing anything because of the fear of being branded a racist,”he said.

Britain is home to a Muslim community of nearly 2.7 million.

Islam sees hijab as an obligatory code of dress, not a religious symbol displaying one’s affiliations.

Police data shows that 1,200 anti-Muslim attacks were reported in Britain in 2010.

A Financial Times opinion poll showed that Britain is the most suspicious nation about Muslims.

A poll of the Evening Standard found that a sizable section of London residents harbor negative opinions about Muslims.(T/Nidiya/P04)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)