Saama Sarsour was travelling from the Arvidsjaur airport in northern Sweden when she aroused suspicion after she caused a metal detector to beep.
“The female guard asked me ‘What's on your head’,” she told the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper.
She was then told to remove her headscarf, to which she replied that she would do so in a private room.
“Then the woman grabbed the scarf and started yanking it,” she said, “I was totally shocked.”
She then informed the police about what happened but they refused to investigate the attack as a hate crime.
According to a Monday report in The Local, the aiport CEO Ralf Lundberg defended the staff member's actions, saying “all have gone through thorough education and training to make sure no one takes dangerous objects through security.”
However, Sweden's penal code states that frisking should take place in seclusion and airports have separate rooms to do this, airport company Swedavia‘s spokesman Klas Nilsson told SvD.
Sweden has seen an increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes recently, with 300 odd cases reported in 2013.
Source: World Bulletin