Extremist Jewish residents of Akka attack a pregnant Arab teacher

Saturday October 25, 2008 00:57 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

The Arabs48 news website reported on Friday that a group of extremist Jewish residents of Akka (Acre) attacked on last Tuesday a pregnant Palestinian Arab woman as she was on her way to an Arab school in the town where she works as a teacher.

The teacher, Wisal Namarna, 22, gave the Arabs48 news website details about the attack which left her with an injury in her left arm as she placed it on her abdomen in order to protect her fetus.  

“I never expected to be attacked like this, I was on my way to school on Tuesday morning”, Namarna stated, “Two young religious Jews attacked me with stones and injured me in my left arm as I placed it on my abdomen to protect my fetus”.

She initially took a cab to Akka and the cab driver dropped her near the District Court and she started walking near the police station on her way to school.

Shortly afterwards, she was attacked by two religious Jewish youths who hurled stones at her from the other side of the street.

“They were wearing the religious traditional Jewish clothes, they hurled stones at me, and I immediately placed my hand on my belly to protect my fetus”, she stated.

Namarna then walked to school and informed the headmaster of what happened to her. Both then went to the police station and to file a complaint.

“I was so astonished by the level of carelessness shown by the police”, she added, “they did not even allow me to file a complaint, a policewoman just took my name and my ID number and told me that they will contact me if anything comes out”.

The policewoman asked her about the ages of the assailants, and Wisal said that they seemed to be 18 years old or so, and then the policewoman asked her to leave and told her that she will be contacted if any information becomes available.

“I was shocked, the police is supposed to be there to protect the residents”, Wisal said, “But it was so apparent that this policewoman just did not care, all what she saw is my head-cover, and my Arab ethnicity”.

The teacher then insisted to file an official complaint, and eventually she was referred to an officer who took her complaint but stated in it that the reason behind the attack is “unknown”.

“If the victim was a Jewish woman, I am sure they would have sealed the whole area and installed roadblocks”, Wisal said, “but they deal with us in a racist way because we are Arabs, they don't really care if we are attacked”.