September 24, 2015 – 1:14PM
Kim Stephens Journalist
A Muslim woman told police she was subjected to a sustained anti-Islamic tirade outside a Logan shopping centre on Wednesday, during which time she captured the man on video baring his backside at her and her two young children.
The woman reported the incident to the Islamophobia Register Australia, an online site dedicated to exposing incidents of anti-Islamic abuse, after saying two calls to police for help went unanswered.
Site organiser Mariam Veiszadeh said she spoke to the angered woman in the wake of the attack, who told her the tirade continued for more than half an hour, during which time her calls to police were not responded to.
The man police are searching for over a sustained anti-Islam tirade on a Logan woman. Photo: Supplied
At the urging of Ms Veiszadeh, an advocate for Australian Muslims and a lawyer, the woman then went to Logan police to report the abuse in person.
A Queensland Police Service spokesman said police attended the shopping centre car park after the second call but could not locate the woman.
They are now searching for the man.
A still from the video taken by a Muslim woman at a Logan car park on Wednesday. Photo: Supplied
The woman told Daily Mail Australia the man hurled multiple obscenities at her, accusing her of terrorism and being unemployed, as she sat in her car waiting for her husband with her two children, aged five and eight.
She was wearing a niqab, which exposed only her eyes.
The German woman, a teacher, converted to Islam 16 years ago, Ms Veiszadeh said.
The man police are searching for. Photo: Supplied
“She felt the need to continue to explain to me, ‘I can’t believe he said I’m unemployed and makes such assumptions – I’m an educated woman, I’m a teacher,'” Ms Veiszadeh said.
“She responded to him by saying, ‘I am not unemployed and I am European’.
“Something that really angered her was that the hatred had so many stereotypical assumptions embedded in it.
Mariam Veiszadeh. Photo: hpitt@fairfaxmedia.com.au
“She also made reference to her stepson being in the ADF and he puts his life at risk for Australians to fight for this country and yet she gets racist and Islamophobic abuse hurled at her on the streets.”
Ms Veiszadeh said the woman had also been upset that a number of witnesses did not intervene to stop the abuse.
“It’s quite concerning when this man was clearly abusing her, no one came to her defence,” Ms Veiszadeh said.
“People sitting in the front were indifferent or went along with it and it was only after he left people approached her.
“I appreciate Logan police station had serious matters to deal with but this is yet another example of complaints regarding an assault targeting an Australian Muslim woman not being taken seriously by authorities.”
Ms Veiszadeh said women wearing the visible symbols of their faith were increasingly bearing the brunt of racist and Islamophobic public attacks, often in the presence of children.
“It’s incredibly worrying that the vast majority of reports being submitted to the Register are of verbal and physical abuse directed at Australian Muslim women, with a large number happening in the presence of young children,” she said.
“This woman is particularly concerned about the devastating impact this incident has had on her children. How do you even begin to explain Islamophobia to your five-year-old child?”
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