Excerpt:
"The martyr of the hijab" is what Egyptians are now calling Marwa al-Sherbini. The 31-year-old veiled Egyptian wife of a postgraduate student in Germany was fatally stabbed – in court – by a German man identified only as Axel W, who had been prosecuted for calling her a terrorist (among other things) while she was playing with her three-year-old son in a park. Marwa's body was interred in Cairo yesterday and her wake was attended by thousands, some of them chanting: "There is no God but God and the Germans are the enemies of God."
The case has sparked anger in the Arab world and Egypt in particular for its perceived under-reporting in the western media and a belief that the attack, described by German authorities as an isolated one perpetrated by a "lone wolf", is the culmination of consistent nurturing and legitimisation of Islamophobia in Europe. The victim's husband was also stabbed as he tried to protect her and was then shot and critically wounded by a police officer who mistook him for the attacker – a fact that compounded the racist dimensions of the story.
Bloggers and commentators have played the "what if" game, reversing the race and nationality of the victim and attacker in order to highlight the muted response from Germans (and Europeans more generally). The murder of Theo van Gogh has also been invoked as an example of the unequal value attached to the lives of Muslims and non-Muslims. The outcry has sparked calls for severing links with Germany and even declaring a "world hijab day" to honour Marwa's memory. The fact that the murder was committed by a reported neo-Nazi in Germany does little to temper a perception that Muslims are the targets of racial hatred.