Fatima Doubakil of the ‘Hijab Outcry’ campaign speaks to members of the media outside the Swedish Government building in Stockholm after a meeting with Minister Ask, following an alleged attack on a woman wearing a hijab on Friday.
AFP/Stockholm
Sweden’s justice minister has met with activists who convinced prominent Swedes to wear headscarves this week to protest an alleged attack on a Muslim woman who wore a hijab.
“We tried to say that there is structural discrimination ... but (Justice Minister Beatrice Ask) kept referring to individual responsibilities,” Foujan Rouzbeh, one of the organisers, said at a press conference yesterday after the meeting. “I also said that under this government, we’ve gotten the impression that that this type of crime has increased.”
A heavily pregnant Swedish woman wearing a hijab on Friday reported being assaulted as she approached her car in the Stockholm suburb of Farsta.
The man who attacked her made a reference to the veil she was wearing, she said.
Police are currently searching for witnesses to the incident, which is being treated as a hate crime.
Her claims prompted an outpouring of solidarity on social media sites, with Twitter users of different faiths posting pictures of themselves wearing headscarves.
Leftist politicians and celebrities were among those supporting the campaign.
On Instagram yesterday, just over 130 people had posted pictures of themselves with their heads covered, and on Facebook around 8,600 people had joined the group “The hijab appeal”.
A demonstration was scheduled to be held in Stockholm tomorrow to support Muslim women’s right to wear the hijab in public.
Activists who attended the meeting with Justice Minister Ask said that they had also demanded that a commission look into the problem of violence against the women who wear it.
The minister told tabloid Expressen that it was “important to listen”, but declined to wear a headscarf herself.
