A Jersey city bus driver, who is accused of assaulting a police officer, has denied accusations saying that the officer has repeatedly harassed her for being Muslim.
"She is the only Muslim driver in the company," Mohamen Faiad, president of Pyramids Express Corp Transportation and the boss of the Muslim woman, told The Jersey Journal on Monday, December 1.
"(She is) wearing a headscarf. (The officer) knows her. He stops her by her face. ... Some other Latino driver working, he doesn't stop her."
Last November, Somaya M. Elkaramany, 46, was stopped and arrested by two officers, on Pavonia Avenue, for "no reason", the woman said in an interview.
Meanwhile, she was issued eight tickets for delaying traffic, improperly picking up/discharging passengers, stopping in a no-stopping or standing zone, failure to signal, careless driving, not having a medical certificate, refusing to obey officer's orders and impeding traffic while discharging passengers.
Both officers, Juan Berrios and Edwin Medina, asked the woman to show her documents at the time while the jitney bus driver was collecting fares from passengers.
"(I told him) 'One second, one second, give me one second,'" she said.
Although she gave her documents to one of officers who was standing at the door of the bus, the other one at the window repeated his demand to see her license, even when the other officer waved her license in the air and said "This is her license," she said.
When the women moved to get back her license from the officer, to show it to the other one, she was assaulted by the officer who grabbed her cell phone and threw it on the ground, breaking it, she said.
Moreover, the officer pushed her to the ground, putting her face to the floor, and "put his leg" in her back, while handcuffing her.
Repeated Assaults
The Muslim woman’s incident is not the first case in which a jitney bus driver was targeted by Jersey police.
One day before the women's incident, another jitney bus driver filed a complaint with the JCPD's Internal Affairs Unit against Berrios and Medina alleging that "Officer Berrios targets jitney bus drivers on a regular basis and issues drivers an excessive amount of tickets for infractions they did not even commit."
The 41-year-old driver said in the complaint that he was "issued a summons for failure to have his medical card even though he was never asked for the card".
On the other hand, Elkaramany said she was seeking legal assistance from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for her case.
The council’s executive director in New Jersey, Mohamed El Filali, confirmed that Elkaramary "initiated a conversation" with CAIR, adding: "We don't know the details of her case just yet."
Though there are no official estimates, the US is home to an estimated Muslim minority of six to eight million.
Since the 9/11 attacks on the United States, many Muslims have complained of facing discrimination and stereotypes in the society because of their Islamic attires or identities.
A recent report by the umbrella Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has found that Islamophobia in the US is on the rise.
