Victim of hijab attack worries for others

LONDON, ONT. • What started as a hunt for cheese and berries at a grocery store left a 25-year-old Muslim mother with a black eye, chipped teeth and heightened fear for the safety of women who wear hijabs.

“I do worry about the safety of all Muslim women who wear hijab,” the woman, who did not want to be identified, said Wednesday.

“Before I thought it was just a statistic that I would see happen to people, but now I know it’s real and it happened to me.”

Police in London, Ont., said a 38- year- old woman was arrested late Tuesday and charged with assault.

The Muslim woman is on maternity leave from her job as a pharmacy technician.

She was shopping Monday at about 5 p.m. when she noticed a woman glaring at her and mumbling in a foreign language.

The woman t hen approached the victim, who was tending to her fourmonth- old in a stroller. As five bystanders looked on, the woman cussed in English, the victim said, then spat at her.

She said she slapped the attacker as a natural reflex. She said the attacker yanked her by the head and dragged her away from her son. She said she was pinned to the wall and punched up to three times in the face.

The victim’s hijab, a religious head covering, fell to her shoulders, revealing hair covered for 16 years.

“I felt embarrassed because at that point everybody was looking at me ... I was standing alone by myself, in shock.”

She said onlookers didn’t help. The victim said she’s a fourth-generation Canadian.

“I am from here, I am Canadian,” she said.