The Left Called This Muslim Women a Hero

Who is Zakia Belkhiri? She's a Muslim woman who became the toast of the political left last year for a well timed stunt. As Stylist pointed out at the time:

Now, images of a Muslim woman standing up to Islamophobic protesters in Belgium have been doing the rounds online

Zakia Belkhiri, 22, was attending an Islamic lifestyle event in Antwerp when she saw the openly anti-Muslim group – Vlaams Belang – gathered outside, holding Islamophobic signs and images that read things like “no headscarves,” “no mosques,” and “stop Islam.”

The hijab-wearing woman took out her phone and started taking defiant selfies of herself in front of the 40-strong group, holding up her fingers in a peace sign. A photographer, Jurgen Augusteyns, saw what she was doing and captured her in a series of images.

Speaking to BBC Trending, Belkhiri says that she took the photos “to show that things can be different. And that we can live together, not next to each other but with each other.”

Belkhiri insists her actions were not a protest though, saying: “This wasn’t a protest at all, this was just to share joy and peace.”

The activist later said on Twitter that we are all human and that all religions deserve respect.

Cool, right? Well, that was then. This is now. How does Belkhiri feel these days? Er, different. As political comic Tim Young pointed at:

More