An Australian Muslim woman was denied entrance on a bus by the driver who requested that he needed to see her face before she got on because “sorry, it’s the law.”
The woman was wearing the niqab dress that covers the hair and lower face:
The driver told her “You can’t get on the bus wearing your mask” and that “you have to show me you face.”
The woman protested that it wasn’t the law, and that there wasn’t a “difference between me and that lady sitting there who chooses to not wear what I’m wearing.”
After a heated argument, the driver relented and allowed her on board.
Bus operator Hillsbus said the driver is being questioned over the incident.
The bus company, Hillsbus, said the driver was being questioned over the claims.
“We are investigating it and doing that as quickly as we can. We need to get to the bottom of it, work out what happened and what went on, and what we need to do about it,” a Hillsbus spokesperson stated.
Relations between Australia’s Muslims – 1.7% of the population – and the majority Christians have sometimes been tense and violence actually erupted in the 2005 Cronulla Beach riots against Lebanese Australians.
