Toronto, June 18: A verbal racist attack against two Muslim women took place in Kingston of Ontario, reports Global News yesterday afternoon.
Jena Badawi was with her mother at the Canadian Tire on Division Street in Kingston area when they say they were harassed by a white lady customer. Jena describes that she is still stunned after being verbally attacked by the stranger while waiting in line for a curbside order at the Canadian Tire there. “She turned to me she started calling us names, saying we are not white, why are we over here, we don’t belong here,” Jena said.
Muslim women, Jena and her mother wear hijabs and are easily recognized to their faith. This incident comes in the wake of what police called a targeted hate crime against a Muslim family in London, Ontario, which left four people dead and a nine-year-old boy orphaned.
This incident was reported to Kingston police, who have charged a 45-year old woman in question with assault and determined the incident was motivated by hate. “We take this seriously. We are treating this as a hate crime. We have a dedicated officer from the core office who is assigned to equity diversity and inclusion”, said Sgt. Steve Koopman to Global News.
Meanwhile, Canadian Tire employees say they are aware of the incident, but declined to comment, as the issue is under police investigation.
Sgt. Koopman urged anyone who has been the victim of a hate motivated crime to come forward. “This quite often is a stranger on stranger. It is a real shock to the victim that this has occurred and we need to treat that seriously. So not only is it needing to come from a police perspective, but also a criminal justice perspective that they are aware, this is a hate crime, these are the aggravating factors. And when it comes to sentencing, it should be dealt with, in my opinion, more severely,” Koopman said.
Jena now believes sharing her story would help stop such incident. In her words, “I’m hoping to see people standing up against racism and stopping it in any way they can.”
Pic from pixabay.com
