Tuesday evening. 11 PM in Paris. Elise, 29 years old, is waiting for the bus with a friend at the Botzaris stop, in Paris 19e arrondissement. When the bus arrives, there was just the two of them at the bus stop. The bus driver, a Muslim, stops, check them out, doesn’t open the doors, and leave.

“All you have to do is dress well.”

“The vehicle stops a few meters away at a red light,” says Elise, a physicist whose father, Kamel Bencheikh, is an Algerian poet. She runs to the driver’s window to ask the driver why he didn’t open the doors.

The driver answer was: “all you have to do is dress well. Look at your legs!”

Elise and her friend stay there for several minutes, stunned, before deciding to call a cab.

“This guy who drives a bus, paid for by my taxes, prevented my daughter, holder of a valid Navigo bus pass, and therefore in good standing, who has never had anything to blame herself for getting on… to get on the bus just because she wore a skirt,” complained Kamel Bencheikh, born in Setif, Algeria.

He describes the driver as an “Islamist” (but the editor of the daily Le Parisien, who reports the incident, could not help but add a note: “Bencheikh free interpretation,” as to disconnect Muslims from any bad behavior).

In anger, Kamel Bencheikh published a virulent post, then a second one on Facebook. But it was immediately censored and taken down by the social network.

“I am accused [by Facebook] of inciting hatred. But I published the facts because I wanted them to be known. To denounce this drift,” continues Bencheikh who describes himself as an “anti-Islamist militant.” His Facebook post says: “I claim my Islamophobia,” and he says he has since received hundreds of insulting messages via Messenger.

“I won’t give up,” says Elise’s father. On Saturday, with his daughter, he filed a formal complaint. He knows the police will do nothing. He knows that even if the police launched an investigation, no court would ever sentence the bus driver.

What does he want then? “At least an apology. I want RATP [the Paris public transport authority] to apologize publicly to my daughter”.

———

Starting today, I will publish a daily update on Islam’s crimes during Ramadan. I’ve been doing it for years in French, and I’ll try to keep up the pace of publishing it both for the Geller report and French publications.

Have a tip we should know? Your anonymity is NEVER compromised. Email Email tips@thegellerreport.com