Drunk men screaming 'Donald Trump' attacked a student in a hijab on the New York subway
UPDATE, 12/14/16: Yasmin Seweid, the woman who made the claims in this story, has admitted that she fabricated them, the New York Daily News reports. She has now been charged with filing a false report.
A Muslim student was verbally attacked by several drunk men who tried to rip a hijab off her head on the New York City subway Thursday. No bystanders on the subway did anything at all to help 18-year-old Baruch College student Yasmin Seweid.
“It made me really sad after when I thought about it,” Seweid, who was born in Brooklyn, told the New York Daily News. “People were looking at me and looking at what was happening and no one said a thing. They just looked away.”
The men were talking loudly about Donald Trump Seweid explained. When she entered the subway car after leaving an event at Baruch in Manhattan’s Gramercy Park neighborhood, they shouted, “Oh look, a [fucking] terrorist.”
“Get the hell out of the country!” they continued yelling according to the Daily News. “You don’t belong here!”
She ignored them the best she could, but they began grabbing at her bag’s strap, at which point she walked to another part of the train. They followed her, and one tried to grab the hijab off of her head.
“Nobody even offered to help an 18-year-old girl,” Seweid’s father told the Daily News. “That means something. Her phone was dying. You offer help — it doesn’t matter the race, religion, or the country.”
This is just one of hundreds of reported hate incidents that have occurred since the election of Donald Trump as president. A report released Tuesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center documented over 860 incidents across the country, 49 of which have been anti-Muslim. The actual number of hate incidents against Muslims is likely higher, as many people may fear speaking out about their experiences. FBI data for 2015 shows a 67 percent increase in hate crimes against Muslims over 2014.
Sam Stecklow is the Weekend Editor for Fusion.