Muslim schoolgirl called a 'terrorist' during racist tirade on Sydney bus

A Muslim teenager was subjected to a stream of racist abuse on a Sydney bus after, according to her mother, she confronted a man she believed was photographing another schoolgirl.

NSW Police has confirmed it is investigating the incident that occurred when Janna, 13, was travelling towards Greenacre in Sydney's south-west on Thursday afternoon.

The incident is a "microcosm of the state of Islamophobia nationwide", according to the Islamophobia Register, which says it has recorded a more than sixfold increase in reports of Islamophobia since the October 7 attacks.

The teenager's mother, Roula, who was not on the bus at the time, said her daughter noticed an older man photographing another girl in school uniform and approached the girl to tell her.

"He heard my daughter and he started attacking her," Janna's mother Roula told SBS News.

Janna, in Year 8, told the man that what he was doing was "disgusting" — then the stream of abuse started.

Roula said he told her daughter, who was born in Australia, that she "didn't deserve to be in this country".

"He started calling her a terrorist," Roula said.

Footage of part of the incident has since circulated on social media, showing the man calling Janna a "terrorist", an "immigrant dog" and an "immigrant mutt", and telling her she "didn't deserve to be here".

She was also subject to a string of other slurs, including sexualised and dehumanising language, which SBS News has chosen not to publish.

Janna repeated several times that she was 13-years-old.

Only one bystander intervened

In another video seen by SBS News — taken by someone else on the bus — a woman wearing a hijab is speaking to the man.

She was, according to Roula, the only adult to intervene.

Roula said she was disappointed that no one else on the bus stepped in, including the driver or other adult male passengers.

"There was a lot of men sitting right next to that man and they were just looking up and looking back down at their phones," she said. "No one helped her, which is really, really, really disappointing."

She was also disappointed that the bus driver didn't intervene or eject the man from the bus.

"She's a minor. She was in full school uniform and the bus driver should have helped," Roula said.

It is understood the driver was unaware of the seriousness of the allegations when they were reported to him by another passenger.

A Transport for NSW spokesperson said the man's behaviour was "deplorable".

"Everyone deserves the right to travel safely and feel safe on public transport," the spokesperson said.

Other schoolchildren on the bus can be heard in this footage addressing the man.

"You can hear them in the background screaming at him and calling him out to stop being racist, and none of the adults were actually saying anything," Roula said.

NSW Police confirmed it was investigating the incident and urged anyone with information or footage to contact Crime Stoppers.

"Police have been told that about 3.30pm, a 13-year-old girl, along with other passengers on the bus, were verbally abused by an unknown man before he disembarked on Liverpool Road, Strathfield," a spokesperson said in a statement to SBS News.

"Inquiries into the incident are continuing."

Islamophobic incidents on the rise

There were 309 reported in-person Islamophobic incidents between January 2023 and December 2024, according to an Islamophobia in Australia report published earlier this year.

The figure was more than double the annual average of previous reporting incidents.

Muslim women and girls accounted for 79 per cent of the reported victims of verbal abuse, and 95 per cent of the reported victims of incidents on public transport.

Aishah Ali, executive director of the Islamophobia Register Australia, which published the report, said the latest incident reflected the more than six-fold increase in Islamophobic reports since October 2023.

"The harassment of a young, visibly Muslim thirteen-year-old girl is a microcosm of the state of Islamophobia nationwide," she said in a statement to SBS News.

"It is unsettling that these Islamophobic incidents are occurring in public spaces, which, as well documented by the Register’s research, still do not remain safe for every Australian, especially the young and vulnerable.

"The Register receives daily reports of these distressing Islamophobic incidents and remains chronically under-resourced to cope with the sheer volume of anti-Muslim hate occurring nationally."

'I don't want her to be scared to catch the bus'

A few days on, Roula said Janna has gone from being shaken and flustered to coping much better.

But she's concerned about what happens next.

"I don't want her to be scared to catch the bus home," Roula said.

"I don't want it to be scared of somebody's going to attack her.

"If he's going to be on the bus again one day on the same route, is he going to approach her again? I don't want that."

Roula said women and girls who wear hijabs are particularly exposed to this kind of abuse because of the hijab as a visual marker — and it's why she believes Janna was singled out.

"Because we have the hijab on, we're targeted," she said. "If she didn't have a hijab on, I don't think he would've reacted the way he did and called her an immigrant."

Identifiable Muslim women and girls wearing a hijab or niqab accounted for 86 per cent of reported incidents involving women, according to the latest Islamophobia in Australia report.

Roula said she personally hadn't experienced Islamophobia in Australia before but has noticed a shift over the last couple of years, amid rising anti-immigration rhetoric.

"It's become a lot more public," she said. "A lot more people are calling it out loud a lot more."

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