On Wednesday night in Turin, a city in northern Italy, three veiled girls were assaulted in a bus, reports Italian newspapers La Repubblica and Milleunadonna. The attack, dubbed racist, was perpetrated by an Italian woman. «We were kicked and punched before my friend's veil was torn», Fatima Zahra Lafram, one of the three assaulted girls, said in a video she posted on Facebook from a hospital in Turin. «All of this happened because one of us was scared of a dog that was in the bus, before we changed places», she said. A passenger then started insulting the three veiled girls. «You are scared of a dog and not an explosive belt», a twenty-year-old Italian woman told the three girls, before she was arrested by the police for assaulting them. «She started by hitting us before tearing the headscarf of my friend Nouhaila», recalled Fatima Zahra. Fortunately, passengers rushed into defending the three girls. «It was heart-warming to see that everyone denounced the assault», the young girl said. The angry woman was then arrested by the police and the girls were taken to the emergency room. They have 90 days to file a complaint against their assaulter. «For all those who think that Islamophobia and racism are not real, it is the demonstration that they are. This is the first time I was faced with these acts and it is humiliating. It is because of the political climate in which we live. This is not Italy, where I want to raise my children». Fatima Zahra, a Muslim girl in Turin «This is not the first time that my friends or I have been the victims of racist gestures and words, but being threatened with stabbing and beaten never happened», says Fatima Zahra, who is originally from Morocco.
