Gardaí investigate after an Asian woman pushed into Royal Canal
Gardaí are investigating after a woman was reportedly racially abused before being pushed into the Royal Canal while walking near Ashtown in Dublin on Friday evening.
Xuedan (Shelly) Xiong, who lives in Castleknock, says she feels too nervous to go out alone after she was pushed into the canal while confronting a group of teenage boys who shouted racial abuse at her.
Ms Xiong was walking between Castleknock and Ashtown at around 7pm on Friday when she says a group of teenage boys rushed at her on bikes to make it seem like they were going to run her into the canal. “I screamed and they laughed and then imitated my scream. They left me terrified.”
A few moments later a second group of boys passed by. “One of them looked me straight in the eyes and said ‘coronavirus’,” Ms Xiong told The Irish Times. “I didn’t say anything, I was stunned and they winked at each other.”
A third group, which included some of the teenage boys who had previously walked and cycled by, then passed by shouting “Chinese noodles” and “fried noodles” at Ms Xiong. She ran after the boys until she caught up with the group which now included some older teenagers.
“I told them it was racial discrimination to speak like that. I wasn’t frightened anymore, all I felt was anger. There were lots of lone women walking along the canal at that time but they targeted me. I think there’s a reason behind that.”
A video posted on TikTok shows two members of the group pushing Ms Xiong backwards into the water. The video has since been removed from the social media site.
Ms Xiong was not physically hurt and pulled herself back onto the path as the boys ran off.
Three passers by stopped to help while she called gardaí to report the incident. “We could still see the group of young men, they were about 200 metres away. Without those three kind people who stopped I’m pretty sure they would have come back and pushed me again.”
Ms Xiong says she waited about ten minutes for a Garda to arrive from the nearby station but decided to return home because her clothes were soaking.
She later went to Blanchardstown to make a formal report. She says gardaí told her it was unlikely the teenagers involved would be found.
An investigation is under way into an alleged racial attack on Friday after a video emerged on social media, which showed a woman being pushed into the Royal Canal near Ashtown in Dublin. | https://t.co/29uoGDBMZJ pic.twitter.com/KwavzsQV78
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) August 16, 2020
Photo by Dimitry Anikin on Unsplash
