An 11-year-old girl was assaulted in Toronto Friday by a man who twice tried to cut off her hijab with scissors and then fled, police said. Khawlah Noman told reporters that she was walking to school with her younger brother when the man came at her with scissors.
\n\u201cHe tried cutting (off) my hijab two times,\u201d she said. \u201cI felt really scared and confused. I didn’t feel comfortable that people are doing this.\u201d
\nPolice described the assailant as an Asian male wearing a black hoodie and glasses. He was said to be about 20, nearly six feet tall and with a medium build.
\nAuthorities are investigating the incident, which occurred at about 9 am (1400 GMT) near the Pauline Johnson school in Toronto’s east side, police spokeswoman Katrina Arrogante told AFP.
\nConstable Jenifferjit Sidhu told a press conference that Noman had turned and confronted her assailant, making loud noises to scare him off and then she ran away with her little brother in tow.
\nAfterward, according to Sidhu, the girl noticed a 12-inch cut from the bottom up on the back of her hijab. She and her brother joined a group of other students also walking to school, for safety, but the siblings became separated from the group and from each other at an intersection crossing.
\nAt that moment, less than 10 minutes after the first assault, the same man suddenly returned. Smiling, he allegedly tried again to cut off her hijab, before fleeing.
\n\u201cThis is a cowardly act of hatred. It does not represent who we are (as Canadians),\u201d Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne said in a Twitter message. \u201cWe must stand firm in our support of this young girl who was assaulted simply for wearing a hijab,\u201d she said.
\nThe school serves nearly 300 kindergarten to grade six students \u201cof diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds,\u201d according to the local school board. More than two-thirds speak a language other than English at home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An 11-year-old girl was assaulted in Toronto Friday by a man who twice tried to cut off her hijab with scissors and then fled, police said. Khawlah Noman told reporters that she was walking to school with her younger brother when the man came at her with scissors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c102-muslim-minorities"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n