American woman wanted after rubbing Saudi student's hijab on body
23-year Jasmine Campbell tore off the Muslim student's hijab and then stripped naked, rubbing the religious headdress over her body.
3 min read
An arrest warrant was issued on Friday by authorities in the US state of Orgeon for a woman who allegedly tore a hijab off a 24-year old Saudi Arabian university student, tried to choke her with the garmant and rubbed it against her genitals.
The Multnomah County District Attorneys offices issued the warrant for 23-year-old Jasmine Campbell, who is charged with hate crimes, after she failed to appear in court on Friday.
Accused of carrying out the attack at a train station on the evening of 12 November last year, court documents obtained by The Sun describe Campbell approaching the victim from behind, grabbing the hijab and using it to choke her.
While the Muslim student managed to briefly push Campbell away, the suspect was relentless and carried on with the assault.
Campbell stripped naked, except for a leather jacket. Then, while dancing, she rubbed the Saudi national's hijab against her breasts, between her legs and against her genitals.
According to Portland Mercury, the court affidavit read: "Defendant then placed the hijab between her legs, rubbed it against her naked vagina, then stretched out the hijab and began vaginally flossing herself with the hijab."
Witnesses soon notified police and Campbell was later stopped by a police officer.
When asked why she assaulted the student, Campbell claimed she was "fighting and playing around, that she wanted to be a stripper, and she wanted to show the victim that she did not have to be a Muslim, that people don't have to be black or white, and that she wanted the victim to know that religion doesn't define her".
Last month, Cambell was indicted by a grand jury last month on two counts of second-degree bias crime, attempted strangulation, harrasment and third-degree criminal mischief.
According to court documents, the victim no longer feels safe wearing a hijab, replacing it with a hat for fear that wearing the religous head covering will make her a target again.
Zakir Khan, Oregon chair of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, explain that similar crimes have been on the rise since 2016, leading Muslim to avoid their mosques and donning their traditional dress in public.
"These situations lead to vicarious trauma in surrounding communities," Khan told NBC.
In 2017, Jeremy Joseph Christian stabbed two people to death in a train station in Oregon as they tried to defend two Muslim women, one of whom was wearing a hijab, from a tirade of verbal abuse directed to them by Christian.
The white nationalist told the girls to "go back to Saudi Arabia'" and "said they were nothing and they should kill themselves".
Read more: Two Americans murdered protecting Muslim women on US train
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