A video has gone viral on social media wherein a woman named Hassina Ahmed (22) was seen hurling racist abuses and getting into a brawl with an Algerian black man in a train. According to a report by the British newspaper Daily Mail, the incident happened on July 16, after the lady boarded a train, at Basildon near West Ham underground in London around 11 pm (local time in the UK).
In the video footage, recorded by the Algerian man, Hassina Ahmed is heard calling him a ‘f****** Algerian c***’. She further calls the man a ‘n*****’ and threatens to stab him.
After the video went viral and netizens began calling her out for the racial attack, Hassina Ahmed, in her defence, said that she was provoked by her Algerian co-passenger. She insisted that she was not a racist.
Hassina Ahmed said she was miffed after the Algerian made sexual advances at her in the train and asked for her phone number. On learning that she was a Muslim, he also slut-shamed her for wearing revealing clothes.
After rejecting the Algerian passenger’s sexual advances, she admitted she’d ‘lost the plot’ and was labelled a ‘wh**e’ for being scantily dressed.
‘What sort of Muslim woman are you? You’re showing off your body. You’re a wh**e’: Ahmed claims the man told her
She was quoted by the British newspaper as saying: “He was giving me the eye when I got on the train and was trying to chat me up and asked for my number. I told him to leave me alone because I’m Muslim”.
“When I said that he started screaming at me. He said what sort of Muslim woman are you? Look at the way you’re dressed. You’re showing off your body. You’re a wh**e, you should be ashamed of yourself.”
This enraged her, said Hassina Ahmed. “I became really angry and had to defend myself. I’m proud to be a Muslim woman and there’s nothing in the religion that says that we have to cover up. It’s nobody’s business how I dress.”
‘How can I be racist? I’m half black myself’
Reminiscing what transpired, Hassina admitted that she could have handled the situation in a better way. Apologising for losing her cool, Ahmed confessed that she was in an inebriated state when the incident took place. However, she asserted that she was compelled to react the way she did.
“I was quite intoxicated by the time I got on the train. But it was the Algerian who got me really angry. I’m sorry that I got so worked up and lost control. I don’t usually drink that much and don’t plan to do that again,” said Hassina further asserting “How can I be racist? I’m half black myself. Do you honestly think that I would pick a fight with two random men on the train because I’ve got something against black people?”
Hassina informed that she lives in East London and that her mother is a Colombian while her father is a Muslim from Kenya.
She further defended her actions saying that the video which went viral on social media was not the complete video. The man who filmed it only recorded one part of it, remarked Hassina.
When asked about repeatedly using the contemptuous ‘n’ term, she said: “I didn’t mean it in a derogatory way”, adding that her black friends frequently used the word for each other, hence she felt there was nothing offensive about it.
The woman complained that she has been receiving death threats since the video went viral on social media. Owing to this she had to discontinue all her social media accounts, lamented the woman.
She revealed that she voluntarily went to a police station on July 21 (Wednesday) and that she has been asked to return next week once officers have viewed the train’s CCTV footage.
“I actually tried to call the police at the time of the incident last Friday, but my phone died. This whole thing has left me very down and depressed and I don’t even feel like coming out of my house anymore”, rued Hassina Ahmed.
Meanwhile, the British Transport Police confirmed that the case is being investigated.
