US Hijab Wearing Women Turn to Self-Defense amid Increased Assaults: Washington Post

The same morning after Republican Donald Trump was announced victorious in presidential elections, Muslim women in cities across the country reported being targeted for wearing hijabs, the daily reports.
 
A Muslim student at San Jose State University reportedly struggled to breathe as a man yanked her headscarf from behind.  A San Diego State University student wearing a hijab reported she was robbed by two men who made comments about Trump and Muslims.
 
Zaineb Abdulla, hijab wearing Muslim woman says she was about 8 years old the first time someone spit on her for being Muslim. The 24 year old is used to feeling the need to protect herself, the article goes on to say.
 
Through her role as vice president of an organization called Deaf Planet Soul in Chicago, Abdulla had been teaching basic self-defense classes to help others feel prepared and empowered to fight back, she said in an interview with The Washington Post.
 
The morning after Donald Trump won the presidency, a number of Muslim women called Abdulla, asking her for a specific type of self-defense training: What could they do is someone tried to grab them by their headscarves?
 
“It gives us confidence,” Abdulla said of the self-defense classes. They help women realize that “if someone grabs you, you have the ability and the right to fight back.”
 
She decided to post videos of the moves on Facebook, and urged her friends to share the videos widely. “In this postelection hate-crime spike, self-defense is more important than ever. Practice this move until it becomes muscle memory and teach your body to react before thinking,” she wrote.
 
In the days following Trump’s election, at least three organizations – The Southern Poverty Law Center, Council of American-Islamic Relations and Anti-Defamation League, tracked a notable spike in hate-crime incidents, The Post reported.
 
Law enforcement agencies throughout the US reported 257 anti-Muslim incidents in 2015, an increase of 67 percent from the year before, according to FBI data released last week.
 
A number of other Muslim women in cities across the country have been organizing self-defense classes in response to the postelection rhetoric and apparent spike in hate crimes.
 
In Memphis, a Muslim activist named Kalimah Azeez met with local police officials to plan a self-defense course at a local mosque, McClatchy reported. Participants will be able to learn “escape and evade tactics” and watch video tutorials on how to use an emergency-response app to record an attack and alert the authorities.
 
Other women are seeking out tools to help them feel a sense of security. One such item is the Tigerlady Self-Defense Claw, a handheld tool with plastic blades that is marketed to female joggers, according to the McClatchy article. A Tigerlady executive said the company has “definitely seen a rise in sales as a result of the election.”