BRISTOL: A 20-year-old Muslim mum was left “embarrassed and humiliated” for asking for a ticket from Bristol bus driver who launched into a tirade ‘against her for wearing a niqab.’
According to a report in DailyMail Online, the incident took place on July 1 when the young mother along with her two-month-old baby travelling on the First Bus 24 from Easton, Somerset to Bristol.
As soon as she boarded, she was left in shocked when the driver asked her to remove the niqab (face veil) insinuating she could “bomb the bus”.
The video of the incident was caught on camera and posted online.
Several other passengers confronted the driver and jumped into the mum’s defence.
The conversation of the bus driver demanding Muslim passenger remove the face veil
Driver: ‘Why are you taking a picture? Because I’ve expressed my opinion? You can take my picture. Do you want my phone number?’
Woman 1: ‘I’m recording you so we can report you later on.’
Driver: ‘I don’t get it.’
Woman 2 ‘(wearing a hijab): I don’t understand why you care [how she’s dressed]. It’s her choice what she wears.’
Driver: ‘I care because this world is dangerous. If you don’t see somebody’s face, that’s not good. In this time we live…’
Woman 2: ‘It’s her choice. You get to choose what you want to wear.’
Driver: ‘It’s not about choice here.
Woman 2: ‘It is a choice, actually. It’s not any of your business just how she’s dressed.’
Woman 1: ‘You’re a member of the public.’
Driver: ‘How I can see your face, you can see my face. We should see our faces. It’s exactly how…’
Woman 2: ‘She doesn’t want you to see her face, that’s her choice then.’
Driver: [walks away and talks to the supervisor]
Woman 1: ‘I’m recording an incident of racism to report later on. I have the right to do that.’
Woman 3: ‘He is basically saying she might blow up the bus. That’s what he just said.’
Driver talking to supervisor: [inaudible] ‘It’s nothing about racism here. This world, in this time, you don’t understand?’
Woman 4: ‘He’s just racist, man.’
Manager: ‘I will chat with you later.’
The victim mother wished not to be named said, ‘But for him to treat me like that in a public place is wrong. I had my baby with me. I’ve been humiliated in public, and I’m disappointed. It’s 2018, we shouldn’t be like that. I’m being stereotyped.’
The victim added: ‘He said he couldn’t see my face, and that he didn’t know what I was ‘capable of doing’.
‘He continued to insult me, and he made me out to be a terrorist, and kept saying everyone should see each other’s faces. He asked why I was wearing a balaclava.
‘I have been humiliated and he insulted my religion, and in front of my new-born baby.’
A spokesman for company First Bus contacted the mum to apologise for the distress caused by the driver’s actions.