Fake News: 14-Year-Old Muslim Girl in Vienna Faked Hijab Attack Story

A Facebook page used to highlight claimed racist attacks in Austria which claimed a 14-year-old Muslim girl had been attacked and thrown onto a railway track has been called out after police said the story is fiction.

‘Racist Attacks and Discrimination in Austria’, which claims to record and document cases of racist attacks in Austria, posted “14-year old Sinem, was pushed by an unknown person on the tracks at the Vienna 1190 Krottenbachgasse and narrowly escaped death!” The author blamed Austrian Foreign Affairs and Integration Minister Sebastian Kurz for the violence after he agreed with a headscarf ban for public workers.

However, new evidence from police has suggested that the entire story had been fabricated by the 14-year-old, Austria’s Kronen Zeitung reports.

The police claim the girl had filed a report claiming she was shouted at and called a “terrorist” by several women who then attacked her, threw her on the train tracks, and she narrowly avoided death by being pulled up before an oncoming train went by.

Facebook users made comments in sympathy for the 14-year-old with many saying how horrible it was that a young girl wearing an Islamic headscarf had been attacked.

After police examined CCTV footage of the train station at the time the girl said the attack took place, they found nothing to corroborate her story. No incidents had occurred at the train station and the girl could be seen in the footage getting on a train with her friend.

The police say they do not know why the girl had lied or how she had come to be physically injured. Officer Irina Steirer said authorities would be questioning the girl again about the incident and confirmed she could face potential slander charges.

In Germany, an almost identical attack happened Wednesday in Hamburg and police have little doubt over the veracity of the story. A 16-year-old Moroccan migrant, who had come to Germany with no paperwork, pushed a 34-year-old woman onto the train tracks causing her to suffer a concussion during a botched robbery.

After the election of Donald Trump in the U.S., another Muslim woman in Louisiana claimed that Trump supporters had ripped off her headscarf and assaulted her. The case was used by media to claim there was a growing number of hate crimes after the election, but the story was also later confirmed to have been fabricated.