SHAFAQNA – A man was caught on camera verbally abusing a Muslim taxi driver in Derby, UK.
The victim filmed the shocking abuse on his mobile phone after the passenger launched an unprovoked outburst, telling the driver “all Muslims should be burned”.
The footage shows the 58-year-old Muslim driver, who wishes to remain unidentified, try to diffuse the situation while the verbal attack intensifies. The driver picked up the man and his two friends from Derby city centre at around midnight on December 30, 2015.
Barely minutes after they set off, the ginger-haired passenger started flinging insults at the driver, telling him: “every sane-thinking person in this country hates Muslims”.
The driver then allegedly stopped the taxi and asked the passengers to get out. The victim, a father-of-four who has worked as a cabbie in Derby for 25 years, said: “When I let them in they were fine. They got in and started eating takeaway chicken. I could tell they’d had a drink but they weren’t drunk.”
“But as soon as we started to move the guy asked me if I watched the news about terrorism and how did that make me feel. I said I was to busy working to worry about that stuff but he asked me again three times. Then he just started on me for whatever reason” he added.
I tried to ignore him, the victim stated, and he said “all Muslims should be burned”. The driver added, “Then he said: ‘I am going to burn you tonight’. That phrase terrified me. It sent a chill down my bones so I switched on my camera.”
The language was disgusting and the things he was saying were just vile. I am not easily frightened, but this frightened me, the victim said. ”I was trying really hard to calm things down because if I had argued with him it would have turned violent. Thank God it didn’t.”
The victim said he has experienced racism before but never so personal. ”I really felt that he meant those words and I can imagine him carrying this threat out if he’s not caught.”
The footage has been passed to Derbyshire Police who have launched a request to find the culprit. ”We have circulated the image of the man and the footage to our officers. We welcome the footage being circulated more widely as we seek to identify the passenger.” a spokesman for Derbyshire Police said.
The victim’s nephew , who also requested to remain anonymous, said, “Taxi drivers are just doing their job and should not be subject to this kind of vile, racist and abuse.”