Montreal woman takes legal action after verbal attack over Palestinian flag

Imane Najar says she hasn’t been able to drive for nearly a month.

She said that whenever she sees a black Jeep, she get’s anxious because she thinks it might be the woman who she said lambasted her for flying a Palestinian flag on her car a few weeks ago.

A video that Najar says she recorded on her phone appears to show a woman in the Jeep telling Najar that she should be sexually assaulted. The video has since gone viral.

“You should be raped and dragged through the streets in front of your kids,” the woman can be heard saying.

Najar said the words still horrify her.

“I think it’s horrible to say that kind of word,” she told Global News, fighting back tears. “It’s not nice to hurt people like that. It’s really not nice.”

According to Najar, the woman also rammed her car. Najar, who was not in the car at the time, said she barely escaped getting hit herself.

Najar, a photographer in Montreal, said the incident has affected her mental health and that she hasn’t been able to work.

“She attacked me personally,” she said. “She didn’t attack Palestine — she attacked me.”

Najar said she plans to take legal action against the woman whom she says lambasted her. Julius Grey, the lawyer representing her, says it’s a question of freedom and civility.

“The case basically will deal with the issue of civility with the issue of harm caused by alleged incivility,” he explained.

In the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict, Montreal police say there have been increasing reports of acts of Islamophobia and antisemitism. Najar said that she is concerned and that she also thinks about her friend, who she says wears a hijab and was assaulted recently in the Mile End district.

“She just had a random slap on her face,” she said. “And he told her, ‘Go back to your country.'”

Najar, who is Muslim, said that political leaders need to do more to call out acts of Islamophobia and that Muslim Montrealers feel isolated.

“We feel sad, we feel unheard, we feel misunderstood,” she said.

According to her, acts of hate against Muslims happen more often than people realize.  Najar said she was lucky that she was able to record what happened to her but that others, including her friend, were not.

“She didn’t have the time to film,” Najar said. “She didn’t have time to react. (Politicians) need to make us feel protected and safe because I don’t feel safe anymore in my own country.”

Montreal psychologist Pierre Faubert said in this climate of heightened emotions, people need to be careful how they behave and also what they say, since words can have a major impact.

“(On) our ability to feel secure, for example, and to feel free,” he explained, “when we know that there are people out there, or someone out there, that hates us.”

For Najar, she said it comes down to respect for each other regardless of our opinions.