From City News (Canada)
EDMONTON — It was instant fear for Alia Hanena when she first saw the words “kill all Muslims” followed by a racist derogatory word scrawled inside the elevator at her Edmonton apartment building.
She was with her four-year-old daughter when she came across the graffiti.
“It’s really scary, especially in a big building like that,” she said. “I just read it and I just took her hand and I ran.”
She says she feared the person who wrote those disturbing words was still in the area.
“I am still shaking. And I’m thinking maybe that something (like that) happen to us in the future. Because you feel like you are not safe in a place.”
While Hanena was able to shield her daughter from the hateful messages, another resident — an 8-year-old Muslim girl — was not as fortunate.
“She was shaken. She told her mother, ‘maybe when I grow up I cannot wear the hijab?’”
It wasn’t the first time Hanena has seen this language in her building. Last month it was the same derogatory slur.
“There needs to be more action. This person knows there is no action,” she said.
Hanena is especially on edge after a recent spike of reported hate-motivated attacks against hijab-wearing women across Alberta.
“But in order to reduce crime, to reduce hate, we have to deal with it,” said Yousra Jomha, an advocate for Muslim women.
Watch Video Below:
