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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/07/german-trial-hijab-murder-egypt
- Woman was stabbed 18 times during hijab trial
- The attacker unharmed; Husband shot by mistake and in critical
condition

It was while Marwa el-Sherbini was in the dock recalling how the
accused had insulted her for wearing the hijab after she asked him to
let her son sit on a swing last summer, that the very same man strode
across the Dresden courtroom and plunged a knife into her 18 times.

Her three-year-old son Mustafa was forced to watch as his mother
slumped to the courtroom floor.

Even her husband Elvi Ali Okaz could do nothing as the 28-year-old
Russian stock controller who was being sued for insult and abuse took
the life of his pregnant wife. As Okaz ran to save her, he too was
brought down, shot by a police officer who mistook him for the
attacker. He is now in intensive care in a Dresden hospital.

While the horrific incident that took place a week ago tomorrow has
attracted little publicity in Europe, and in Germany has focused more
on issues of court security than the racist motivation behind the
attack, 2,000 miles away in her native Egypt, the 32-year-old
pharmacist has been named the "headscarf martyr".

She has become a national symbol of persecution for a growing number
of demonstrators, who have taken to the streets in protest at the
perceived growth in Islamophobia in the west. Sherbini's funeral took
place in her native Alexandria on Monday in the presence of thousands
of mourners and leading government figures. There are plans to name a
street after her.

Sherbini, a former national handball champion, and Okaz, a genetic
engineer who was just about to submit his PhD, had reportedly lived in
Germany since 2003, and were believed to be planning to return to
Egypt at the end of the year. They were expecting a second child in
January.

Unemployed Alex W. from Perm in Russia was found guilty last November
of insulting and abusing Sherbini, screaming "terrorist" and "Islamist
whore" at her, during the Dresden park encounter. He was fined ¤780
but had appealed the verdict, which is why he and Sherbini appeared
face to face in court again.

Even though he had made his anti-Muslim sentiments clear, there was no
heightened security and questions remain as to why he was allowed to
bring a knife into the courtroom.

Angry mourners at the funeral in Alexandria accused Germany of racism,
shouting slogans such as "Germans are the enemies of God" and Egypt's
head mufti Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy called on the German judiciary to
severely punish Alex W.

"Anger is high", said Joseph Mayton, editor of the English-language
news website Bikya Masr. "Not since Egypt won the African [football]
Cup have Egyptians come together under a common banner."

In Germany the government of Angela Merkel has been sharply criticised
for its sluggish response to the country's first murderous anti-
Islamic attack. The general secretaries of both the Central Council of
Jews and the Central Council of Muslims, Stephen Kramer and Aiman
Mazyek, who on Monday made a joint visit to the bedside of Sherbini's
husband, spoke of the "inexplicably sparse" reactions from both media
and politicians.

They said that although there was no question that the attack was
racially motivated, the debate in Germany had concentrated more on the
issue of the lack of courtroom security. "I think the facts speak for
themselves," Kramer said.