July 9, 2009

Funeral held for Egyptian “headscarf martyr”


by David Masters

The life of an Egyptian woman stabbed to death in a German courtroom was commemorated this week.

Over 1,000 mourners, including representatives from the Egyptian government and the German embassy, attended the funeral of 32-year-old Marwa Sherbini, known as the “headscarf martyr”.

Sherbini, three months pregnant with her second child, was stabbed 18 times in a German courtroom by a man convicted of insulting her religion.

Her murderer, a 28-year-old Russian national known only as Axel W., was in court accused of calling Sherbini a ‘terrorist’ because she wore a hijab.

Sherbini stood in the dock in a Dresden courtroom giving evidence against Axel W., when he strode across the courtroom and plunged a knife into her 18 times in a frenzied attack.

Her husband, Elvi Ali Okaz, ran to save her but was shot by a police officer who believed he was the attacker.

Sherbini’s three-year-old son was in the courtroom at the time, and witnessed the attack.

Thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets in Sherbini’s native Egypt, highlighting a perceived growth of Islamophobia in the west and protesting the lack of media coverage of Sherbini’s murder in the western press.

Egypt’s top Muslim cleric, Grand Imam Sheikh Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, said Axel W. should be given the “maximum punishment” possible under German law.

“The killer is a terrorist who should receive severe punishment for what he has done, something that contradicts all the values of humanity, decency and religion,” he said.

Speaking to the Egyptian press earlier this week, Sherbini’s mother said she “never imagined” her daughter would become a “victim of terrorism”.

A spokesperson for the German embassy in Egypt said the attack was a “criminal act” that had “nothing to do with persecution against Muslims”.

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