16 hours ago
Aussie woman is verbally assaulted by a stranger at a Westfield who threatened to fight her and made a 'disgusting' racist remark
An Aussie woman who wears a hijab has revealed she was the victim of a terrifying racist incident.
Zeeba Horoni, from Sydney, was verbally abused and followed by a woman while heading out for dinner with her sister and a male friend in Parramatta, in the city's west, on June 1.
The retail assistant explained she had returned to Sydney earlier that day after visiting family in Melbourne with her sister.
Her sister's friend picked them up from the airport around 7pm and they drove to Paramatta for dinner at a noodle house at a Westfield shopping centre.
The racist incident took place when Ms Horoni was walking with her sister while their friend was slightly ahead.
She said a woman, believed to be in her late 20s, was 'talking really loudly about the hijab', but Ms Horoni at first believed she was speaking with a friend.
'She was saying, "You don't have to wear the hijab when you go out, it makes you oppressed, you look so much better without it", and I thought that was a weird thing to say to a friend,' she said in a TikTok.
Ms Horoni said she then realised the woman was talking to her.
'She was in front of me on the escalator and I said, "Sorry, did you say something to me?" And she was swearing under her breath,' she said.
The retail assistant admitted she was 'scared and shocked' by the encounter.
When she reunited with her sister and friend at the bottom of the escalator, she turned to them in Arabic and said: 'This girl is trying to fight me'.
The woman appeared to understand Ms Horoni and turned to her and said 'Do you want to fight?', before ordering her to put down her bags and fight.
Ms Horoni said she did not want a physical altercation at which point the woman turned to the sister's friend and made a 'disgusting' remark.
'She asked him, "Do you want to gangbang me because all your Muslim brothers want to gangbang me?"' Ms Horoni said.
The woman turned her attention back to Ms Horoni, telling her she needed a nose job before following the group and 'being aggressive'.
'What did I do to you? I was minding my own business and you're attacking me,' Ms Horoni told the woman before threatening to call the police.
The Sydneysider revealed the woman said to her 'you ruined everyone else's hijab with your hijab'.
'My theory is she's an ex-Muslim or maybe she has trauma from the religion and she's taking it out on someone that's a visible Muslim,' she said.
Ms Horoni said the incident was 'really scary' and thought Parramatta 'would be the last place this would happen' because it's a multicultural area.
She advised hijab-wearing women to be careful especially if they're travelling on their own.
