Assault on board a bus on the Cremona-Spinadesco line. Two girls of foreign origin allegedly slapped an Italian girl of the same age because she was eating a sandwich on the bus and insulted her: ‘Whore, you can’t eat, it’s Ramadan’. When the bus driver intervened to defend the girl, the two allegedly pushed him and scratched his face, breaking his glasses and forcing him to be taken to the hospital.
The incident, reported by the daily La Provincia di Cremona, is said to have taken place on Tuesday March 4 and was described by the 52-year-old driver himself, who was able to leave hospital with five days of treatment. The man said that it was some women who raised the alarm: ‘Driver, they’re fighting, pull over!’. He then stopped, opened all the doors and ordered them to leave the bus. ‘At that moment, I saw that they were beating the Italian girl. I immediately called the carabinieri, who arrived within a few minutes’.
The girls were let off the bus, but when one of them jumped off the bus,’ said the driver, ’she pushed me in the stomach. The other one also pushed me, broke my glasses and scratched my face. The driver said he would file a complaint with the carabinieri and attach the medical report.
The news triggered a strong reaction. The attack was sharply criticised by the Muslim community. Muslims living in Italy must respect the laws of the country and behave like responsible citizens. If we want to be respected, we must first and foremost respect others and the environment in which we live,’ explained Aftab Ahmed, member of the Consulta degli immigrati and chairman of the Immigrati cittadini Onlus association in Cremona.
In contrast, Lega MP Silvia Sardone described the incident as ‘emblematic of what the most radical Islam is: violence and oppression against non-Muslims. Yet there is still someone on the left who bends over backwards in the face of increasing Islamisation, closing schools for Ramadan, adapting canteen menus to please the various Muslim communities and even allowing the niqab in class’.