White man harasses hijab-clad Muslim cop, calls her ‘ISIS'

December 5, 2016

New York, Dec 5: An off-duty hijab-clad Muslim police officer was called “ISIS” and told to go back to her “country” by a white man who also pushed her 16-year-old son, the latest in a series of incidents in which headscarf-wearing women have been targeted in the US following Donald Trump's win. Officer Aml Elsokary, who was off duty and wearing her hijab, dropped off her son in Brooklyn. After parking her car, she returned to the scene to find her son being shoved by the suspect, a white man in his 30s.

White

When the officer — a native New Yorker — approached, the man said, “ISIS (expletive), I will cut your throat, go back to your country!” Elsokary did not identify herself as a police officer, and was unarmed, the New York Daily News reported, citing police sources.

The suspect then fled the scene. Police were trying to track him down. The NYPD Hate Crimes Unit is probing the episode as a bias incident which took place on Saturday. Officer Elsokary — who proudly wears her hijab on duty -— was touted as a hero by the New York city mayor after she ran into a burning building to save an elderly man and baby girl in April 2014.

Responding to a call about a fire over the police radio, Elsokary and her partner had rushed to a smoke-filled building. The decorated officer had joined the force shortly after the September 11 terror attacks to “show people that the terrible acts of that day contradicted the teachings of Islam,” Mayor de Blasio had said at a 2014 dinner.

The mother-of-five had received a medal for her bravery. Saturday's incident comes amid a slew of intimidation and assault cases that have been reported across the country against hijab-clad women following Trump's win.

On Thursday, a Muslim student was allegedly assaulted aboard a subway train by three drunk white men who repeatedly screamed “Donald Trump!” and hurled anti-Islam slurs before trying to rip her hijab off. Earlier this month, a Hijab-clad Muslim student was allegedly struck in the face with a glass bottle in broad daylight at the University of Washington campus in Seattle.

In another incident, a hijab-clad woman was allegedly accosted at a US store by another customer who called her a “terrorist” and told her to “get out” of the country. Also, a Muslim student's hijab was allegedly ripped off and her hair pulled down by a classmate at a school in Minnesota.

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Agencies
May 17,2020

Washington, May 17: The overall number of global coronavirus cases has increased to over 4.6 million, while the death toll has surpassed 311,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

As of Sunday morning, the total number of cases stood at 4,634,068, while the death toll increased to 311,781, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed in its latest update.

The US currently accounts for the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 1,467,796 and 88,754, respectively.

In terms of cases, Russia has the second highest number of infections at 272,043, followed by the UK (241,461), Brazil (233,142), Spain (230,698), Italy (224,760), France (179,630), Germany (175,752), Turkey (148,067) and Iran (118,392), the CSSE figures showed.

Meanwhile, the UK accounted for the second highest COVID-19 deaths worldwide at 34,546.

The other countries with over 10,000 deaths are Italy (31,763), Spain (27,563), France (27,532), and Brazil (15,662).

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Agencies
February 4,2020

The Seattle City Council, one of the most powerful city councils in the U.S., on Monday unanimously passed a resolution condemning India’s recently-enacted Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

Reaffirming Seattle as a welcoming city and expressing solidarity with the city’s South Asian community regardless of religion and caste, the resolution “resolves that the Seattle City Council opposes the National Register of Citizens and the Citizenship Amendment Act in India, and finds these policies to be discriminatory to Muslims, oppressed castes, women, indigenous, and LGBT people“.

Introduced by Indian American City Council member Kshama Sawant, the resolution urges the Parliament of India to uphold the Indian Constitution by repealing the CAA, and to stop the National Register of Citizens, and take steps towards helping refugees by ratifying various UN treaties on refugees.

“Seattle City’s decision to condemn CAA should be a message to all who wish to undermine pluralism and religious freedom. They cannot peddle in hate and bigotry, and expect to have international acceptability at the same time,” said Ahsan Khan, president of Indian American Muslim Council.

Thenmozhi Soundararajan of Equality Labs, which organised the community in support of the resolution, welcomed its passage. “We are proud of the Seattle City Council for standing on the right side of history today. Seattle is leading the moral consensus in the global outcry against the CAA, she said.

Soundararajan said that thousands of organizers across the country have called, e-mailed, and visited Seattle City Council members to amplify this resolution, and it sets an example to cities across the United States.

“At a time when members of the Indian ruling party sided Trump, the Muslim ban, and his war on immigrants as justification for targeting hundreds of millions of Indian minorities, Americans have a unique responsibility to stand up and speak about this human rights crisis. We are glad that Seattle is leading the way on this,” she said.

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News Network
June 22,2020

Geneva, Jun 22: The global count of coronavirus cases has surpassed 8.7 million, with 183,020 new cases recorded on Sunday, the World Health Organisation said in its daily situation report.

Over the last 24 hours, 4,743 people died from COVID-19 worldwide, taking the death toll to 461,715 fatalities, according to the report.

The cumulative global toll of confirmed cases has now reached 8,708,008, as stated in the report.

The WHO Regional Director for Europe, Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, shared that Europe accounts for 31 per cent of COVID-19 cases and 43 per cent of COVID-19 deaths globally.

Dr Kluge highlighted that several countries continue to face increasing disease incidence and that "preparing for the autumn is a priority now at the WHO Regional Office for Europe"

The United States continues to be worst affected by the contagion with the highest count of cases and fatalities -- 2.2 million and 118,895, respectively.

The novel coronavirus was declared a pandemic by WHO on March 11.

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