A Wellington bus company is investigating after a video of a man racially abusing two Muslim men on a bus was published online.

The video shows an older New Zealand man verbally abusing two young men, who appeared to be Middle Eastern, as they were getting off a bus in Naenae, Lower Hutt.

He called the two men “Islam c***s” and accused them of “shooting innocent people”. As the men got off the bus he then told them to “go back to their own country”.

A female passenger is being hailed as a hero after standing up to the man.

She clapped while he was ranting and told the two young men “welcome to New Zealand”, before telling the man to “behave”.

“It doesn’t matter who killed who,” she said.

The man eventually turned his attention to the woman, telling her to “get f***ed”.

The woman who uploaded the video to Facebook, an Iraq national who wished only to be known as ‘Noor’, says the first driver told the man to stop but when a new driver took over, nothing was done.

“Who are you to tell anyone to go back to your country?” she wrote.

“New Zealand don’t need people like you here [sic]. People like this need to grow up and [get] a life… we don’t want anything like that here.”

Noor, who is Muslim, says she wears a religious headscarf and is grateful for the woman who spoke up against the man.

NZ Bus operates the route and today apologised to passengers who were abused, but is standing by the driver for not intervening.

“If they step into a situation like that and confront the passenger it could potentially escalate the situation and that puts themselves and their passengers at risk,” says NZ Bus’ chief operating officer Tonia Haskell.

The company is investigating and has referred the matter to police.

The racist rant comes days after Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy said coverage of the Islamic State atrocities was fueling Islamophobia and the Prime Minister should do more to support Muslims.

The identity of the man in the video is not known.

Source