4 Muslim women punched in face in Islamophobic attacks in Australia

May 11, 2017

Melbourne, May 11: In bias-motivated crimes, four Muslim women in Australia were allegedly punched in the face by a 39-year-old journalism student from Paraguay.mslm

One of four Muslim women targeted in four successive and unprovoked Islamophobic attacks yesterday said she was randomly punched in the face as she walked through the city wearing her headphones.

Maria Claudia Gimenez Wilson, a 39-year-old journalism student from Paraguay, is charged with assaulting the four women, aged 18-23, as they walked along busy roads near University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in Ultimo, Sydney Morning Herald reported.

All four women were wearing hijab, and were allegedly punched in the face.

Officers are treating the assaults as "bias-motivated crimes" after Wilson allegedly told police she was motivated by a hatred of Muslims, the report said.

One of the alleged victims, Hanan Merheb, posted on Facebook that she was walking past UTS listening to music and "in a pretty good mood" when she was punched out of nowhere.

"[I was] staring absent-mindedly ahead of me when some lady ... came up to me and punched me in the face," she said.

"She didn't speak to me, didn't run away, she just punched me and walked off, as casually as if she had just come to say hello."

Wilson, who moved to Australia to study, was ordered to undergo a psychiatric assessment in Prince of Wales Hospital today after her Legal Aid solicitor, Vanya Hampel, told Central Local Court that her client was seeking to be dealt with under mental health legislation.

A medical report said that Wilson had schizoaffective disorder and "appears to be suffering persecutory beliefs".

"The only thing I did was to take a bull cut [sic] to a Muslim lady," Wilson said. "I don't see any problem with that."

Mariam Veiszadeh, founder of Islamophobia Register Australia, said Australian Muslim women in hijab often bear the brunt of Islamophobia.

"We are very concerned with the escalation of both the frequency of incidents of Islamophobia and the level of violence," she said.

New South Wales Police spokesman for bias-motivated crime, Superintendent Daniel Sullivan, said police will "fully investigate" any race-related crimes.

"We encourage anyone who suspects they have been a victim of a bias motivated crime to report it to police. If we don't know about it, we can't investigate it," he said.

The attack comes amid assaults targeting hijab-clad women in different parts of the world from the US to the UK.

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News Network
June 13,2020

Paris, Jun 13: The coronavirus pandemic has killed 425,000 people since it emerged in China late last year, according to an AFP tally of official sources at 0130 GMT on Saturday.

A total of 425,282 deaths have now been recorded from 7,632,517 cases.

Europe has registered 186,843 deaths from 2,363,538 cases, but the epidemic is progressing most rapidly in Latin America, where there have been a total of 76,343 deaths recorded from 1,569,938 cases.

The United States remains the country with the most recorded deaths at 114,643, ahead of Brazil which on Friday became the second worst-hit nation with 41,828 deaths. Britain is next with 41,481 deaths, followed by Italy (34,223) and France (29,374).

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Agencies
January 25,2020

Pentagon, Jan 25: Thirty-four US troops had been diagnosed with concussions and traumatic brain injury (TBI) as a result of the January 8 Iranian missile attack on two military bases in Iraq housing American soldiers, the Pentagon said.

"Eight service members who were previously transported to Germany have been brought to the US, they would continue to receive treatment in the US either at Walter Reed or their home bases," Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman told the media on Friday.

Hoffman said that nine service members were still undergoing treatment in Germany, and the rest of the 17 injured troops have already returned to duty in Iraq, reports Xinhua news agency.

Lat week, the US military had said that 11 service members were treated for concussion symptoms due to the missile attacks.

Hoffman noted that the symptoms "are late developing and manifested over a period of time".

In retaliation for the killing of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani in an American drone attack on January 3 in Baghdad, Tehran launched over 13 ballistic missiles on the two military bases in Anbar and near the city of Erbil.

US military initially said that no casualty was reported from the Iranian attack. President Donald Trump then downplayed the seriousness of those injures.

"I heard that they had headaches and a couple of other things, but I would say and I can report that it's not very serious," Trump told reporters on Wednesday at a press conference in Davos, Switzerland.

More than 5,000 US troops are deployed in Iraq to support the country's forces in the battle against Islamic State militants.

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News Network
June 22,2020

Karachi, Jun 22: India-born renowned Pakistani Shia scholar and author Talib Jauhari passed away here after a prolonged illness. He was 80.

Jauhari, who was born on August 27, 1939 in Patna, is survived by his three sons, Dawn News reported on Monday.

He migrated to Pakistan along with his father in 1949, two years after the Partition.

After obtaining early education from his father, he went to Iraq where he studied religion for 10 years under the renowned Shia scholars of that time.

Jauhari, who was on a ventilator in the intensive care unit of a private hospital for the past 15 days, breathed his last on Sunday night.

His son Riaz Jauhari confirmed his death and said that the body has been shifted to Ancholi Imambargah for the funeral prayers, The Express Tribune newspaper quoted his son as saying.

Jauhari was respected among his sect as he was a class fellow of the widely revered scholar Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani.

He was also a poet, historian and philosopher and authored many books.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has condoled Jauhari's death.

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