A Muslim civil rights group is demanding an investigation after a woman living in the state of Texas claimed that she was attacked for wearing a hijab at a Starbucks coffee shop.
Nur Ashour said she was verbally and physically attacked by a woman, and no one in the store came to help.
"Today I got harassed by a woman for wearing a hijab. The sad part was it was @Starbucks and not a single employee or bystander said a word to her. She threw things in my face and said horrific things. Had the roles been reversed, I guarantee the reactions would have differed," Ashour said in a series of tweets that went viral, reaching almost 200,000 likes and 60,000 retweets.
Ashour mentioned how she was with her 3-year-old and an 8-month-old children when the attack occurred. Afterwards, she ran out and found a security guard. But the woman who assaulted Ashour told the officer, "I don't know what her problem is, she threw stuff at my face."
Ashour called the other woman "a liar" and said she "was terrified and crying."
The nation's largest Muslim civil rights organization called for state and federal authorities to launch an investigation and urged anyone with knowledge of what occurred to contact police.
"Hate crimes are on the rise throughout the United States, including here in Dallas," Council of American Islamic Relations' Dallas/Forth Worth (CAIR- DFW) chapter head, Ekram Haque, said in a statement.
A spokesperson for Starbucks told Newsweek the company reached out to Ashour since she tweeted, however, could not confirm the specifics of what happened.
"This type of discriminatory behavior is obviously not acceptable in our stores and not welcome. When our partners [employees] see something, they move quickly to address it," the spokesperson said.
Another Muslim woman was attacked in Dallas earlier this year, because of her identity as a Muslim, according to CAIR-DFW.
