Racial abuse claim leads to arrest
Road trip incident disappoints but doesn’t surprise Islamic Women’s Council
A27-year-old woman has been arrested following an alleged racist attack on a woman in Huntly which was caught on video. Mehpara Khan, 28, was on a road trip with friends on Saturday when a stranger approached the group, who had stopped for a toilet break in Huntly. Khan said racial abuse was hurled at the group and a can of beer thrown at them.
Police said yesterday that “following an incident in Huntly”, a woman was in custody.
She is facing charges of assault, assault with a weapon, and using offensive language and will appear in Hamilton District Court today.
Police said that after being provided with video evidence, staff “acted quickly” to make an arrest.
“Police do not condone threatening behaviour,” said the Waikato West Area Commander, Inspector Naila Hassan. “Complaints such as these will always be thoroughly investigated by police, and victims should not hesitate to report incidents to us.”
Since posting the video, Khan, a corporate communications consultant, said she’d been flooded with support. Islamic Women’s Council spokeswoman Anjum Rahman said it was “very disappointing but not surprising” for such an attack to happen. “Muslim women are often the ones who bear the brunt of attacks by strangers in public places. We get a lot of drive-by comments. People yelling at us.”
Rahman said the attack directed at Khan was among the worst in recent months.
“With the stuff that’s been happening in America, with the Muslim ban and so on, we’ve felt that people have actually come out and been more supportive and sympathetic, so it was sad to see this kind of thing happening.
“But the thing is that even though these are isolated attacks, what it does is make people, particularly women within our community, a bit more afraid to be going out, a bit more afraid to be interacting with people. So I think it’s important to take action on this.”
Asked about the attack yesterday, Prime Minister Bill English said he hadn’t seen all the details, but if it was as described then it was a terrible thing. He said anyone should feel safe in New Zealand.