The headscarf martyr: murder in German court sparks Egyptian fury

The headscarf martyr: murder in German court sparks Egyptian fury

• Woman was stabbed 18 times during hijab trial
• Outrage at lack of media coverage fuels protests

It was while Marwa el-Sherbini was in the dock recalling how the accused had insulted her for wearing the hijab after she asked him to let her son sit on a swing last summer, that the very same man strode across the Dresden courtroom and plunged a knife into her 18 times.

Her three-year-old son Mustafa was forced to watch as his mother slumped to the courtroom floor.

Even her husband Elvi Ali Okaz could do nothing as the 28-year-old Russian stock controller who was being sued for insult and abuse took the life of his pregnant wife. As Okaz ran to save her, he too was brought down, shot by a police officer who mistook him for the attacker. He is now in intensive care in a Dresden hospital.

While the horrific incident that took place a week ago tomorrow has attracted little publicity in Europe, and in Germany has focused more on issues of court security than the racist motivation behind the attack, 2,000 miles away in her native Egypt, the 32-year-old pharmacist has been named the "headscarf martyr".

She has become a national symbol of persecution for a growing number of demonstrators, who have taken to the streets in protest at the perceived growth in Islamophobia in the west. Sherbini's funeral took place in her native Alexandria on Monday in the presence of thousands of mourners and leading government figures. There are plans to name a street after her.

Sherbini, a former national handball champion, and Okaz, a genetic engineer who was just about to submit his PhD, had reportedly lived in Germany since 2003, and were believed to be planning to return to Egypt at the end of the year. They were expecting a second child in January.

www.guardian.co.uk...

www.guardian.co.uk...

There you have it, the end product of the Islam baiting and manufactured Islamphobia peddled by zionists, Israeli apologists and war mongers. A woman was racially and religiously abused at a children's playground while with her young son by an unemployed racist. She stood her ground and sued the man.

While in court this racist murderer stabbed her 18 times. Her husband leapt to protect her and while doing so, a police man burst into the court room and shot the husband and not the white guy with the bloody knife.

The irony is that the killer was an immigrant himself, unemployed and draining the German economy of social security. The murdered woman was a pharmacist and the her husband is a pharmacologist. Both are Egyptians, the brightest and the best of that country, who were invited to Germany to do a Phd project.

Germany consumed this Egyptian family and the unborn child in the woman.



[edit on 083131p://am3105 by masonwatcher]

Horrific.I read UK and US papers and think i read of a murder in a German court room but with no details.In a neighboring county to me you cant even bring a cell phone in much less a weapon.Theres 2 aspects here.A hate crime murder and lack of security in German courts.I hope they lock the attacker up for 200 years.

I find this one of the most horrifying stories ever. What a terrible reflection on society. And how tragic.

I can't believe this isn't bigger news in the US, it seems so outrageous. And aside from the real story itself, I can't help but think...a knife in the courtroom? How in the world did that happen?

I truly feel sorry for the son and husband, to experience such a thing......

Originally posted by _Phoenix_
I truly feel sorry for the son and husband, to experience such a thing......

It is sad. I am personally horrified and appalled. This is precisely the pay off for the demonisation of Muslims. You never heard of the casual slaughter of pregnant muslim women until Bush's war on terror and Israeli apologists stoking up problems in the whole of Europe and the US.

Muslim women have always worn hijabs and has become a problem for others in the last 10 years. If it an issue of women's rights then why are muslim women getting attacked? It is not the first time a woman has been killed for wearing a hijab. Why are the women being attacked on the streets and not the men? What kind of dirty cowardice is that?

[edit on 043131p://pm3140 by masonwatcher]

I'm disgusted and i hope they make an example out of this man. I also hope her husband pulls through.

It's a woman's right to choose what to wear, and if she chooses to wear a hijab then so be it. Forcing people not to wear something is just as bad as forcing them to wear something. Targetting people based on how they like to dress is just wrong. Where all the same bodies under all these clothes.

[edit on 16-7-2009 by Nammu]

If the roles had been reversed, and it was a Muslim woman stabbing to death a white man in court, can you imagine the furore? The media frenzy? The cry of terrorism at this incident would have swept across the world. The face of the murderer plastered all over our TV screens and the face of the poor victim.


But no, because it was a Muslim woman being stabbed to death by a white man, it's just a small, under-reported sad event, no cry of terrorism, no global outrage. Her name quietly forgotten, the murderer's name too.


The media is bias against Islamophobic crimes, at best unconciously, at worst quite conciously.



She was the wrong colour and the wrong relgion to be a victim worthy of media focus.


Brutual, I know, but it's the brutal truth.


Had she been killed by Iranian Government forces however, she would be a media martyr.

Why? Because it fits the media's reporting of Iran, it fits in and justifies to the media there often bias against Iran.


But no. This brave lady murdered in Germany will not receive the same attention as the brave lady murdered in Iran, because the uncomftable truth is that the murderer in this case was a white educated European man, and that raises uncomftable questions in the West regarding growing xenophobia towards Muslims.



There will be no great 'Remember Marwa el-Sherbini' and Green campaign across Twitter as there was with Neda from Iran.


Fact.


[edit on 19-7-2009 by Regensturm]

reply to post by Regensturm


Yup. If was reversed and the pregnant Muslim woman attacked the racist it would be have been made a meal of by those who have an agenda against Muslims.

Originally posted by AgentX09
Horrific.I read UK and US papers and think i read of a murder in a German court room but with no details.In a neighboring county to me you cant even bring a cell phone in much less a weapon.Theres 2 aspects here.A hate crime murder and lack of security in German courts.I hope they lock the attacker up for 200 years.

I hope they take the attacker to Egypt and chain him to a pole
in the square of the town the lady was from.

That would be justice, mob justice, but justice none the less.