Mob attacks hijab-wearing woman in Spain in ‘Islamophobic’ assault

Muslims attend a demonstration in protest against a surge in anti-Islamic hate crimes following deadly terrorist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils, in Granada, August 23, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

A mob in Spain has brutally assaulted a hijab-wearing Muslim woman in the country’s capital of Madrid, in what police describe as an “Islamophobic” attack.

A group of young men attacked and beat the Muslim woman up in front of the Usera Metro Station in the south of the Spanish capital, leaving her with cuts, bruises, and a mild concussion, according to media reports published on Friday.

The 38-year-old woman, whose name was not revealed, was transferred to hospital for treatment.

The victim told authorities that she saw little of her attackers’ faces and that they started beating her because she was wearing a hijab.

Police in Madrid said they were treating the violent assault as an “Islamophobic hate crime,” adding that no arrests had been made until then.

Hundreds of Muslims in Spain held a protest rally last week against a rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes in the wake of a pair of recent terrorist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils that killed 14 people.

A van rammed into a multitude of people on Rambla Avenue in the center of Barcelona on August 17, killing at least 13 and injuring more than 120 others. The Moroccan driver, Younes Abouyaaqoub, fled the scene after the attack but was later declared to have been shot dead by police.

A day later in the seaside resort of Cambrils, 100 kilometers away from Barcelona, five terrorists drove a car into pedestrians before being fatally shot by security forces. One of the pedestrians died and six others sustained injuries in the attack.

Both terror attacks, considered the deadliest in Spain in more than a decade, were later claimed by the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group.

People leave flowers, candles, balloons and other objects to pay tribute to the victims of the Barcelona and Cambrils attacks, on the Rambla Boulevard in Barcelona, August 21, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

Members of the far-right group Hogar Social purportedly attacked the main mosque in the southern Spanish city of Granada with flares and smoke bombs last Saturday.

Vandals also defaced mosques with racist and anti-Islamic graffiti in some other cities in Spain, including Seville.

Some two million Muslims live in Spain, making up around four percent of the total population.