'Had to physically push him away': Londoner details racist attack on young Muslim girl in social media post

A London commuter stepped in to defend a young Muslim girl on the London underground after she was subjected to horrific racist abuse in the aftermath of the Paris terror attacks.

In his post, Londoner Ashley Powys details the incident that took place after he boarded the Victoria line tube at Oxford Circus station on Monday. He sat opposite a young woman in a hijab who was verbally abused with racial slurs by another man on the same train.

The Facebook post that has been shared more than 25,659 times also describes how he had to “physically push him away from her, as he was aggressively close and was clearly terrifying her.”

The 21-year-old wrote, "[He> stood at the connecting door of the tube and began to stare at this girl. After she looked at him and looked away, he went nearer to her and said, ‘f****g p**i’, quite loudly."

“He then got closer to her, and was reeling off abuse calling her things like ‘r*gh**d’, ’terrorist’, ‘scum’, and saying that ‘her people’ murdered the victims of the Paris attacks this weekend.”

Despite his intervention to act like a “physical barrier”, the man continued to shout abuse at her while Powys tried to distract her by asking about her day, and other small talk topics, all the while making sure he didn’t have direct access to harm the girl.

Despite the fact this young man stepped in valiantly to protect a young girl what even surprising is sadly not a single person other than him in the carriage stepped in to defend the woman. Expressing his disgust, Ashley wrote, “And that’s what shocked me most about my journey. Is that not one other person on that crowded train stood up for Yara. They sat in silence and allowed that abuse to happen. That’s the problem with our society. Silence is our biggest weakness. We need to start speaking up and defending each other.”

According to The Telegraph,  Powys is now hoping for a reunion with Yara and is attempting to track her down.

You can read his full post here:

(My original post was removed by Facebook, so I’m reposting it, as I believe it was removed in error.)Something just…

Posted by Ashley Powys on  Tuesday, 17 November 2015