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Muslim woman ejected from Trump rally after silent protest
A Muslim woman wearing a headscarf was kicked out of a rally for presidential hopeful Donald Trump on Friday.
Her crime? Staging a silent protest against the Republican frontrunner who has called for a ban on Muslims entering the US.
Television footage from the event in South Carolina showed Rose Hamid, a 56-year-old flight attendant, wearing a loose-fitting green shirt reading "Salam. I come in peace".
She stood in silence facing Trump's podium as the rest of the crowd sat and watched.
Minutes later and she was kicked out of the events by angry Trump supporters, waving placards and chanting his name.
"You have a bomb, you have a bomb," one man shouted at her.
"The ugliness really came out fast and that's really scary," Hamid told CNN after Friday night's rally.
The worrying thing to many American-Muslims is that Trump leads the polls for the Republican nomination for the White House, and stands a real chance of becoming president this year.
The property moghul is known for his extremist and anti-Muslim rhetoric.
Last month, Trump called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the US - including American-Muslims.
"There is hatred against us that is unbelievable," Trump told the rally, according to CNN, after Hamid and several others were ejected.
"It's their hatred. It's not our hatred."
But a prominent Muslim advocacy group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), condemned Hamid's removal and called on Trump to apologise.
"The image of a Muslim woman being abused and ejected from a political rally sends a chilling message to American Muslims," CAIR executive director Nihad Awad said in a statement carried by US media.
The image of a Muslim woman being abused and ejected from a political rally sends a chilling message to American Muslims. - Nihad Awad |
Muslims in the US have faced a backlash following the November terror attacks in Paris and the San Bernardino attack in California on 2 December.
Critics of Trump's bombastic run for the presidency accuse him of fanning the flames and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton says he is the "best recruiter" for the Islamic State extremist group.
More than half a million people signed an online petition calling for Trump to be banned from the UK over his remarks about Muslims.
British lawmakers will debate the demand, as the British law stipulates that any petition with at least 100,000 signatures must be considered for parliamentary debate.