Another day, another anti-Muslim incident that simply shocks. After many years of listening to victims, logging their cases, advocating for them and empathising with them, the cases that are the most shocking are the ones involving young children. This is the text of what we received in today. This cannot be acceptable in any society and it is our collective duty to change such behaviour and to make an example in the courts of people who target others because of their identities. (Names and identifying details have been changed).
We have not changed the main elements of the text and the last statement also shows that there is some work to be done in building confidence for members of the public to report in hate incidents and crimes.
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My daughter who is 15 years old was coming back from school. She was waiting at the bus stop at the St John’s corner, off Longhorne Street.
A white guy in his late 30’s, wearing tracksuit bottoms and a grey hoody approached her, first swearing at her, then saying, ‘you fucking Muslim, your ISIS’, go back to your country.
He tried to grab one of her friends, but they started running.
My daughter is mixed race, who wears the Hijab and we did not contact the police as we have no faith in the British police.”