There have been over 350,000 tweets using #illridewithyou as Australians unite http://t.co/IjdlhTk3SU pic.twitter.com/y4YwK4l4o7
— BBC Trending (@BBCtrending) December 15, 2014In the wake of a tragic armed hostage siege in Sydney, Australia over the weekend a beautiful hashtag campaign was launched on social media to soothe fears of anti-Muslim violence.
Thousands of commuter heroes have united under the banner, #IllRideWithYou, pledging to accompany those, especially Muslim women in headscarves, who fear racially motivated and bigoted reprisals on public transport.
The spark was a post on Facebook by Rachael Jacobs, who said she’d seen a woman she presumed was Muslim silently removing her hijab while sitting next to her on the train: “I ran after her at the train station. I said ‘put it back on. I’ll walk with u’. She started to cry and hugged me for about a minute – then walked off alone’.
(READ the story in the BBC)
Story tip from Julie Bennett and Andrew N.