Racist hate crime has increased due to UK’s coronavirus outbreak and Brexit, an Islington
GP has said after allegedly being racially abused at a cafe in Hampstead, London.
In an exclusive interview with Islington Now, Dr Roghieh Dehghan, who is Iranian and Muslim, claimed that she was verbally abused because of her race this week.
Dr Dehghan, who has lived and worked in the UK for 19 years, said she was told to “go home” and “piss off” by a white middle-aged man at a café in Hampstead Garden Suburb, near where she lives, on Monday.
Dehghan also said that xenophobia and racism has increased since the 2016 Brexit referendum. Hate crimes have more than doubled since 2013, with over 100,000 recorded in England and Wales last year according to Home Office figures.
She currently works as an NHS GP at St John’s Way Medical Centre, near Archway station, as well having been a part-time researcher for UCL’s Institute of Global Health since 2016. Dr Dehghan told Islington Now that she visits the café where the abuse happened at least once a week to work on her research.
She declined to name the café, citing her desire to protect the privacy of the owner who she has known for many years. She described it as an independent café that is frequented by many local people.
Racism in Hampstead Cafe
Dr Dehghan said that, as well as the owner, three customers were present when the accused man walked in and started a conversation about coronavirus. “He was asking the other customers where it came from and then kept talking about how infections come from foreigners,” she said. “He even claimed the tuberculosis he contracted twenty years ago came from abroad.”
The other customers, who she described as “regulars that know me well enough to call me ‘Doctor’”, were said to be “nodding in agreement.”
“One of them was saying that immigrants exploited British compassion, and only come here for benefits.”
“That really upset me… I felt I had to say something,” she added. “I explained I had worked here for 20 years and that immigrants cannot be scapegoated for all the country’s issues, but the man who started the conversation kept interrupting me, saying ‘so, you’re a foreigner.’”
“He asked me where I was from and I would not answer, so he just said ‘go home’,” she alleged.
Dr Dehghan initially left the café, but said she decided to return soon after. “I won’t be made to leave when I’ve lived here for so long,” she said. “But when I came back inside, the man said: ‘Do you want to hear it in English? Piss off.’”
She has not reported the incident to the police, saying: “In my experience, police don’t do anything about racist verbal abuse.”
“Police try to find excuses,” she said. “Unless I am beaten up, I doubt the police will take me seriously.”
Dr Dehghan was born in Iran, and later became an Austrian citizen after moving there as a young girl, before immigrating to the UK in 2001.
Aside from this recent incident, Dehghan says she believes racism has worsened since Britain voted to leave the European Union.
“For example, the day after the Brexit referendum someone said: ‘F*** off foreigner,’ to me when I was walking my dog in Kenwood Park [Hampstead].”
“I had lived here for fifteen years and that was the first time I had experienced racist abuse,” she said.
Hostile Environment
She said that “the country is in denial about racist hate crime as an issue”, adding that she believes a “hostile environment started during Theresa May’s leadership of the Conservative Party.”
She claimed that the government “has been hiding behind its politicians of colour,” like Home Secretary Priti Patel, adding that she believed the Conservatives had “definitely” helped to worsen racism. “Just because you are not white, this does not mean you are automatically a spokesperson for people of colour or an expert on race,” she said.
The Home Office and the Metropolitan Police were contacted for comment.
