Woman visiting Manitoba confronts self-proclaimed 'Nazi' after racist verbal attack

A Calgary woman who came to visit her family in Manitoba this summer says she was shocked by the racist verbal attack she endured when she asked a stranger for directions.

In an exchange captured on video, a man who describedhimself as a "Nazi" told Calgary teacher Kaniz Fatima to takeher "head towel off" because it "supports Muslims." He also told her to "go back to your country."

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"His comments actuallyshocked me a lot and then I was scared too," she said.

Fatimawas inManitoba to visit family in early July. She and her family were driving about 100kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, when they got lost.

Fatimasaid when she stopped in a parking lotto ask a stranger for directions, he called her a "parasite" and hurled racist insults at her. A witness later identified to CBC the area as near Seven Sisters Dam.

Fatimaposted a video her husband took of part of the encounteron social media this week.

"You are being racist," Fatimacan be heard telling the man in the video.

"I'm a f--king Nazi," the man can be heard replying in the video. "Do you know what a Nazi is?"

He then goes on to demand that Fatimaremove her head covering.

"This is my hijab. Why should I take it off?" Fatima can be heard replying in the video.

Two women passing by can then be heard confrontingthe man.

Fatima says sheand her family eventually got in their car and drove away.

'Doesn't represent Canada'

"I felt a responsibility to talk against racism, to stand up against Islamophobia," Fatima told CBC News in an interview Wednesday.

"I felt like I need to uphold my Canadian values and stand up for inclusion and justice because this is our country and we belong to this country."

She praised the passersby who stopped to defend her.

"This man doesn't represent Canada. The other two ladies who stood up for us, they truly represent Canada," she said.

Fatima, who came to Canada from Bangladesh in 2009, said she's never experienced anything like the racist attack before.

Even so, she said she has heard of similar encounters and feels people are currently more open about expressingracist views than they have been in recent history.

The political situation in the United States may be partly to blame, she said.

Helmut-HarryLoewenis a hate crime expert and member ofan anti-fascist activist group in Winnipeg calledFascist Free Treaty One.

Speaking toCBC Newslast week, he said white supremacist groups are very much present in Manitoba andorganizing, andattempts at recruiting within these groups are on the rise.

"Some have referred to it as the Trump effect, and we certainly saw that in Winnipeg just within days after Trump's election," he said.

"Posters went up downtown from various organizations. Some of them were posted on campus at the University of Manitoba promoting a kind of white students' union. All of this happened in the wake of Trump."

But Canada has its own problems with racism. The number of police-reported hate crimes against Muslimsjumped by 60 per cent in 2015 compared to the previous year, according to Statistics Canada.

Data released in June of this year showed there were 159 anti-Muslim incidents reported to police in 2015, up from 99 the year before.

On Thursday, Fatima's husband, Mohammad Alam, said the couple have filed a report with the Calgary Police Service, whotold them the report will be referred to police in Manitoba.