Journalism Essay: Discrimination Against Muslim Women Wearing Hejab

This journalism essay delves into the discrimination faced by Muslim women wearing hejabs in the UK, focusing on an incident at the Regent Street Cinema where a group of college girls were asked to remove their hejabs before entering the theater. The essay includes interviews with the affected girls, who express their anger and frustration at being subjected to religious bias and denied equal opportunities. Eyewitness accounts and a video clip filmed during the incident are also referenced, highlighting the lack of support from bystanders. The essay further presents the perspective of a movie theater official who apologizes for the staff's misconduct and assures that such incidents will not recur. Ultimately, the essay underscores the persistent issue of discrimination and calls for collective efforts to raise awareness and promote inclusivity, emphasizing the need to support hejabis who are often victims of such biases. Desklib provides similar essays and resources for students.

Running head: JOURNALISM
Journalism
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

2JOURNALISM
Muslim college girls forced to remove hejabs before entering in U.K’s famous movie
theatre Regent Street Cinema
Thursday 14th December 2017 11.56 GMT
The famous movie theatre in the UK the Regent Street Cinema deeply apologized to a
group of five Muslim college girls for having asked them to remove their hejabs before availing
the tickets of the movie theatre.
The shameful behavior of the movie staffs has been reported by few college girls yesterday. On
being interviewed, they expressed their anger and hatred towards those movie theatre officials
who misbehaved with them and tried to compel them to take off their headscarf before entering
the movie hall or even before being able to stand in the queue to get the movie tickets.
However, this is not the first time that we have been conducting interviews related to this
particular area. Several news channels have been constantly reporting the interviews conducted
with many victims who have been facing such discriminating behaviors.
Last Tuesday, few girls from nearby college went to the famous movie theatre Regent
Street Cinema to watch a certain movie show. While they were standing in the queue before the
ticket counter they had to encounter this unexpected and strange behavior from the theatre staffs.
Two movie theatre staffs came up with the girls asking them to remove their hejabs and then
wait in the queue for their tickets (Greenfield and Rawlinson 2017). This really angered the girls
and they said that they will not be removing their hejabs. One girl among them said “We are
Muslims and we wear hejabs because of our religious beliefs and we are not at all ashamed of
this” In response to this one of the movie theatre staffs said that “There is no big deal in taking
off the scarf. It is really very simple”. This constant exchange of statements between those girls

3JOURNALISM
and the movie theatre staffs made the entire crowd turn their attention to it. The entire mob was
standing there seeing this scene taking place. However, the most surprising thing was that none
of the individuals from the mob raised voice against this shameful activity that was taking place
in front of their eyes.
One or two people, however, had stepped out from the mob and tried to support the girls.
They had also come for the interview and have given their views on whatever they witnessed that
day and how they actually feel about the same.
When these two persons came out from the mob and tried to stop the movie theatre staffs,
they refused to listen to them and said that “Stay out of this. Let us do our work.” One of the
girls said “It is really a misfortune and a big disgrace that even today; we have to face such
discriminations. It is a free country and we are all free individuals (Greenfield and Rawlinson
2017). We can dress up as we want." To this, another girl said, " we are just like every other
individual standing in this queue and wearing hejabs does not make us something different from
them then why will we be distinguished from others and be denied of equal opportunities?”
The movie theatre staffs then asked the girls that they must know how to behave properly
(Greenfield and Rawlinson 2017). This really angered the girls and two of them started filming
this misconduct on the part of the movie theatre staffs. This made them even angrier and they
asked the girls to stop filming it immediately. However, the girls would also not give up. The
girls did not agree to remove their hejabs and so they were denied entrance into the movie hall.
They were very young and they did not know what to do in that situation. Moreover, they were
hardly being supported by the mob that gathered there. So, finally, they had to leave the place.
They said in the interview that they wanted to film this misconduct of the movie theater staffs

4JOURNALISM
and make it viral on social media so that people come to know the trauma that every hejabi has
to pass through every now and then.
On being interviewed one of the girls said that “It was really a misfortune that we had to
come across this kind of a rude and unfortunate behavior from the movie staffs. We had gone to
the theatre to enjoy the movie with our friends and to our great misfortune we had to face such a
bad situation” Another girl added “It was really a very dangerous situation. We did not know
what to do and we feared that the situation might get worse if we continue the argument with
those movie theatre staffs.”
However, we also talked with one of the movie theatre officials who said that “there is no
such rule that denies people entry into the movie hall on the basis of their religion or their attire.
What has happened is really very unfortunate and we are deeply apologetic for the same. We will
make sure that those two staffs that have misbehaved with the girls are made to apologize
personally from the girls”
Those two officials have apologized to the girls for misbehaving and have also assured
that no such incident will ever happen in future.
However, incidents like this repeatedly make us think about the major threat of
discrimination among individuals. It is high time that we start taking steps to come forward and
use joint efforts to deal with this problem and make people aware of this issue.

5JOURNALISM
Pitching
It’s high time that we support the hejabis in the UK who become victims of discrimination
News that gets much telecasted over the media every day is the discrimination faced by
Muslim women wearing hejabs in the UK. It is really a shame that even in the modern day
society; people are being denied equal rights and opportunities only on the basis of their religion.
A very shameful activity that has recently taken place at the Regent Street cinema in the
UK once again has pinpointed to the racial and religious biases that are still persistent in the
society. Thousands of Hejabis are becoming victims of discriminations every day. A group of
young hijabi college girls was denied the movie tickets and the entrance into the movie hall on
account of not removing their hejabs. The more surprising fact is they were hardly being
supported by the mob that gathered there.
They did not obey this unjust order of the movie staffs and left the spot. They were also very
worried and helpless at that moment.
We will be interviewing those girls and also some of the eyewitnesses that were present
on the spot during this incident. We will also be sharing a video clip that was filmed by one of
the girls during the occurrence of that incident at the Regent Street Cinema.

6JOURNALISM
References
Everett, J.A., Schellhaas, F.M., Earp, B.D., Ando, V., Memarzia, J., Parise, C.V., Fell, B. and
Hewstone, M., 2015. Covered in stigma? The impact of differing levels of Islamic head‐covering
on explicit and implicit biases toward Muslim women. Journal of Applied Social
Psychology, 45(2), pp.90-104.
Gould, R., 2014. Hijab as commodity form: Veiling, unveiling, and misveiling in contemporary
Iran. Feminist Theory, 15(3), pp.221-240.
Greenfield, P. and Rawlinson, K. 2017. Muslim student says she was ordered to remove
headscarf at McDonald's. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-
news/2017/dec/01/muslim-student-ordered-remove-headscarf-mcdonalds [Accessed 16 Dec.
2017].