Female Muslim medical students have been verbally abused and have had patients refuse to be treated by them in a fortnight where the spectre of ignorance has raised its ugly head in the Hunter.

Two female students were walking back to their car at Maitland hospital last Wednesday when they were verbally abused by a car-load of men because they were wearing the religious head dress, known as a hijab. A nurse who witnessed the incident assisted the terrified women to flee the tirade of obscenity.

“I’ve always met lovely people since I have been in Australia; but what happened to us was a horrible experience,” one of the students said. She said several of her Muslim female friends had reported some patients had refused to be treated by them. “We are taught in medicine not to take offence, but ultimately we are human and it does hurt; you do feel it,” she said.

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Despite pleas for calm from the Queensland Premier and senior police, Muslims – particularly women – have been targeted in a series of hate attacks.

The Sunday Mail can reveal Muslim women are being singled out, including one victim who had coffee thrown in her face while she was stopped at traffic lights south of Brisbane. The woman said a man in a car pulled up beside her and callously doused her in coffee before driving off along Beenleigh Rd. “I was terrified,” she said. “I feel unsafe. I feel like a stranger in my own country.”

Other Muslim women have been abused and threatened, with one told to take off her headscarf – or hijab – at West End by a man who wanted to burn it. The women did not want to be identified, and all believe they are “collateral damage” from recent police anti-terrorism raids which have fuelled fear and suspicion across the nation.

Sarah, 30, said she’d been waiting outside a shop in Logan Rd at Underwood with a 12-year-old girl when insults were hurled at her by a man riding past on a pushbike. “He yelled f— jihad, f— off, go back home you c— and continued to verbally abuse us,” she said. In the next 20 minutes she was abused twice by other men. “It’s quite frightening to hear such vile language and hatred. I was fearful,” she said.

Stacey, 27, said she had copped offensive insults online. “I’m a seventh generation Australian,” she said. “My family are as Australian as you can get and I’m scared.”

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