Vancouver woman says she was subject to Islamophobic, verbal harassment

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — It’s not the first time she’s been harassed while taking public transit, but it’s the first time a Muslim woman says she was able to capture a few minutes of the hateful comments a white man made towards her at a bus stop in Vancouver. 

Shafira Vidyamaharani was on her way to work around 11 a.m. Friday. After she sat her bag down at the bench at her bus stop near E 49th Avenue and Main Street, she says a man aggressively asked her multiple times, “Where are you from?” and “What is that thing on your head?” referring to her hijab. 

“I just kept quiet and I was distancing myself away from him. And I could tell that he was really upset by it,” she says.

Vidyamaharani says she then overheard the man complaining about her to a bystander and then he started to call her offensive names and told her to “go back to my own country.”

She says she tried to move towards a crowded area and nest herself near more people. But he continued to make hateful comments which escalated into threats. 

“He was saying, ‘I’m going to kick that thing off your head,’ starting to spew real threats that were very specific to Islamophobia.”

And that’s when she pulled out her phone to film the encounter. 

Vidyamaharani explains that in the video, she thinks he attempted to flash her but stopped himself from pulling his pants down. She says he also seemed to prevent himself from physically harming her because there were times she felt he was about the strike her. 

“But he kind of pulled back a little bit and it’s just like verbally harassed me and threatened me.”

Vidyamaharani adds, “This isn’t the first time that I got harassed on public transit. This is just the first time that I recorded it.”

“Honestly, just looking back, I can’t believe that I was able to just pull up my phone and record … his face. Because on a different day, on different circumstances, I can’t guarantee you that I can leave the situation un-harmed and with the footage as well,” she says.

Vidyamaharani posted the video on Instagram and says since doing so, she’s been “overwhelmed” by the community support. 

And she adds, she hopes the video can help increase community safety.

“I guess the message I want to get across is: be present in witnessing what had happened.”

However, when the incident was taking place, she says she felt lonely in the moment as witnesses kept their distance.  

“Instead of people moving in to kind of protect me, like physically, they kind of were actually giving him space to move closer to me. So that was a little scary.”

She adds a few people checked in on her, “But at that point, [it] had been done, and I was already threatened and shaken.”

When the bus came, the man hopped on the bus while she stayed behind for the next bus. 

“But it was very uncomfortable and anxiety-inducing to just still even be in that space while that whole thing was just fresh. And had to wait for the next bus because I felt a little frozen.”

Muslim women in particular face harassment that Muslim men do not: expert

Between 2010 and 2018, Statistics Canada data shows that of all victims of violent crimes targeting the Muslim population that were reported to police, 45 per cent were women or girls.

That relatively high proportion of female victims was attributed in part to the practice of wearing head coverings, which may make religious identity more visible for Muslim women than for men.

“There’s many levels to Islamophobia that Muslim women, in particular, face,” Ahmed Khan, a researcher with RECLAIM, says. “Personally, I don’t like speaking on behalf of Muslim women and the discrimination they face, but from the testimony they’ve informed me of, it’s quite difficult. And for some sisters who openly wear their hijab, it happens several times.”

Khan adds the discrimination Muslim people face “doesn’t necessarily have to come through violence.”

“Some of this can come with just eye stares. Some of them can come from the way people ignore them and tend to treat and dehumanize them, and so because they’re wearing a headscarf, they become visible. And they become open targets.”

Friday’s incident was reported to the Vancouver Police and is still under investigation.