SYDNEY - An Australian bus driver has been accused of racism after he allegedly told a Muslim woman to take off her headscarf because it was against the law to wear it on board.
Khadijah Ouararhni-Grech was wearing a pink, floral niqab, which covers her hair and lower face, when she tried to board a bus in Greystanes, an outer suburb of Sydney.
“As I was stepping onto the bus the driver said ‘You can’t get on the bus wearing your mask’,” the Telegraph quoted her, as saying.
When she explained it was religious dress, the woman said the driver responded: “Sorry, it’s the law.”
“I told him it wasn’t the law and he said ‘You have to show me your face’. I said to him, ‘There’s no difference between me and that lady sitting there who chooses to not wear what I’m wearing’,” she said
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 spokesman said.
Muslims make up about 1.7 per cent of Australia’s heavily Christian population of almost 22 million, and religious tensions have run high in recent years.