In the summer, earlier this year, Nisa Khan was subjected to horrific Islamophobic abuse by a Central trains Driver whilst trying to make her weekly commute between Leicester and Birmingham. The train driver taunted Nisa and left her traumatised by the experience. Unfortunately, the case has recently been dropped by the Criminal Prosecution Service due to “insufficient evidence”.

Islamophobia is not figment of our imagination, as some media sources have suggested, and again we have seen how the justice system is failing to prevent Islamophobic abuse and then failing to bring the perpetrators to justice.

In this case a member of staff with a huge amount of authority was allowed to conduct his behaviour in threatening and abusive manner and has not suffered any consequences since. The CPS has failed to bring justice by claiming that there is "insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction". As Nisa pointed out the was plenty of evidence available in the forms of police phone call recording and CCTV images, but it seems that the justice system has found a way out of carrying out justice to another victim of Islamophobia.

Central trains themselves have not proved to be effective carriers of justice either, providing Nisa with few responses and offering her a month’s free travel on their trains, whilst Nisa feels unable to travel on these trains, making their offer empty and pointless.

This case has not been the example many would have hoped for, as it has shown that Islamophobia is still not being taken seriously enough. It seems that the CPS did not have any difficulty in brushing this example of Islamophobia under the carpet.

For the original article please see http://www.mpacuk.org/content/view/2222/1/ 

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