Muslim woman interrupted by man shouting 'there's no Sharia law here' during live interview in Whitechapel

Hannah Al-Othman19 August 2016

A man shouted remarks about "Sharia law" while a Muslim woman was being interviewed on live TV in east London.

Ruqaiya Haris, 23, was talking about Islamophobia on social media while sat in Altab Ali Park in Whitechapel.

She was telling Catrin Nye from The Victoria Derbyshire Show about abusive Tweets she had received when the man interrupted her with the comments.

The man, named Paul, who was apparently sitting on a nearby wall, shouted: "There's no Sharia law here."

He was asked to keep his voice down but replied saying he wanted to express his right to "freedom of speech", and agreed to have his face shown on camera.

When confronted, Paul claims he was not speaking to the student, but when pressed further on the issue he said: "We're losing our right to freedom of expression. We are.

"We're being told to be politically correct when we don't want to be politically correct."

The BBC show reported that nearly 7,000 tweets in English that we deemed to be Islamophobic were sent every day in July, with numbers increasing around the time of the Nice attacks.

Discussing the issue, Ms Haris said: 'It doesn't really matter what I say, or what I'm writing about, or what I'm posting about.

"The responses after some kind of terrorist attack will always be slating Islam in some kind of way - or insulting Islam, or insulting me, or insulting my hijab.

"Even if I'm talking about something totally unrelated. Even if I'm sending condolences to the victims."

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