Many children all over the world have experience and still experiencing humiliations of choice religion – Islam from people around them. However, this has led them to feel reluctant in going to public places on their religion’s holy wears.
Just of recent, a city teacher lost his job after forcibly removing the Islamic headcover called hijab, from one of his students in class, according to media reports. The child felt humiliated and didn’t expect such act from her teacher and bursts into tears.
It was reported that Oghenetega Edah, 31, who worked as a substitute teacher at Bennington School, PS 76 in the Bronx, told an 8-year-old Safa Alzockary to remove her hijab after she was reportedly to have misbehaved in class according to police sources.
In reacting to the child’s offence, Edah then ripped the hijab off Alzockary’s head which as a result caused irritation to her eye, police explained.
“There should have been other means of punishing children when they misbehave and not violating their religious right,” a police said.
As the eye disturbance continues, the child was eventually taken to Jacobi Medical Center where a doctor said there was no permanent damage to her eye. Many people regarded the teacher’s act as inhuman while a statement by New York City Education Department spokesman Michael Aciman called the teacher’s conduct “unacceptable”.
“This individual was removed from the school immediately and his employment has been terminated,” Aciman said in the statement. This alleged behavior is completely unacceptable,” he added.
Safa also has a twin sister and older brother who attend PS 76, was apparently traumatized by the sub’s alleged actions. They couldn’t relate the action of the teacher against their sister. This made them really scared.
“It was scary,” Safa expressed her feelings. She wished such act didn’t happen to her in anyway.
In response to this act, Safa’s dad Mohammed Alzockary, who is a devout Muslim and grocery worker emigrated from Yemen to New York was shocked by what his child has passed through in school.
“I didn’t expect a teacher to do that to a child, she is OK right now … but kids, they’re nervous.” Alzockary said.
It was reported by one of the officials that incidents involving hijabs in the public schools are rare. However, this act of violently taking off head cover from muslim children has been in practise for the past years. In 2011, two Staten Island students were also charged with hate crimes for snatching one of the religious scarves from the head of a classmate. While incidents in schools might be rare, there have been other attacks in New York and other cities around the world.
Also last year December, an off-duty New York City police officer and her son were the victims of harassment after they were physically and verbally attacked while dropping her son off in Brooklyn. The man who allegedly targeted them because the officer is Muslim. The incident began in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where officer Aml Elsokary had dropped off her 16-year-old son on a corner and went to park her car. When she returned, she found a man, Christopher Nelson, shoving and yelling at her son.
The issue of physical harassment of Muslims is not only common in New York city but also all around the world. A heart that wholly exhibits religious tolerance will put an end to this. The world is a place meant to be filled with love and more love should be expected.
