A student in Italy has recorded the verbal abuse he received whilst walking the streets of Milan in traditional Muslim dress, as part of an investigation into Islamophobia in the country.
Hamdy Mahisen, who is of Egyptian descent but living in Milan, carried out the experiment in the midst of growing fears that Islamic fundamentalists from Libya might use Italy as a 'land bridge' into Europe.
The thirty-year old Muslim told Italian newspaper Trieste Prima the conclusions of his experiment were that "friction and insults that were fairly innocent between the Islamic community and the natives are now loaded with new meaning.”
Mahisen's footage, which features the student wearing the traditional robes and headwear of an imam, includes such insults as "Taliban s***" and "look, he has got the Koran. Think he’s got a gun under his tunic?”
Elsewhere in Italy, six students have been banned from wearing the hijab in Italian colleges, whilst Moroccan-born Aicha Mesrar, the first politician to wear a hijab in an Italian city hall, recently fled the country after a series of death threats.
The Milanese experiment highlights the growing Islamophobia of many European cities, and also bears a resemblance to a recent video filmed by Jewish reporter Zvika Klein in Paris, which exposed anti-semitic hostility on the streets of the French capital.