{"id":372941,"date":"2026-03-30T12:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T12:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/372941\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T12:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T12:35:09","slug":"doctor-worried-for-familys-safety-after-brother-was-headbutted-and-told-to-speak-english-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/372941\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctor worried for family\u2019s safety after brother was \u2018headbutted and told to speak English\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Afghan<\/a> doctor who has lived in Ireland for more than a decade said she feared for her family\u2019s safety after her brother was physically attacked in Co Meath<\/a> earlier this month and told to \u201cspeak English\u201d.<\/p>\n

Fatima Abdullah (33) moved to Ireland in 2015, joining her husband, who had moved<\/a> here the year before to work as a doctor<\/a>. The couple and their three young children are all Irish citizens.<\/p>\n

Abdullah\u2019s parents and siblings moved to Ireland in 2022, after the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan in 2021.<\/p>\n

Abdullah, who lives in Bettystown in Co Meath, had many sleepless nights worrying about her family while they were still in Afghanistan and said she felt immense relief when they moved to Ireland. <\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, \u2018Okay, now it\u2019s done, finally I can breathe and I can be happy. I don\u2019t have to think or worry about them\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n

Recently, however, \u201cthings have changed drastically\u201d, she said. <\/p>\n

Abdullah, who is training to be a GP, said she felt very safe in Ireland until a number of recent attacks on immigrants<\/a>. Some of her siblings experienced verbal abuse and, on one occasion, her sister\u2019s hair was pulled in an unprovoked attack in Dublin city. <\/p>\n

Earlier this month, a more serious assault occurred. Her brother, Ibrahim Samim, was allegedly headbutted by a man in a takeaway in Navan, Co Meath. <\/p>\n

Samim (24) was ordering food after a night out when the altercation occurred. <\/p>\n

\u201cI placed my order in English, and then I turned towards my friends and I was chatting with them in Dari and Pashto,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

These languages are spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan. <\/p>\n

Samim said people were standing around chatting when two men walked into the takeaway. One of the men touched his shoulder and asked him to move forward in the queue. <\/p>\n

Samim said he stepped forward, but \u201cthe other fella pushed me\u201d and shouted \u201cf**king move\u201d.<\/p>\n

Samim said he couldn\u2019t move forward any farther and asked the men: \u201cWhere do you want me to move?\u201d <\/p>\n

Samim said one of the men then headbutted him and said \u201cspeak f**king English, this is Ireland\u201d.<\/p>\n

Paramedics and garda\u00ed attended the scene. <\/p>\n

Samim was bleeding heavily, but his nose was not broken. He said he has experienced headaches and struggled to sleep since then.<\/p>\n

\"IbrahimIbrahim said he was bleeding heavily after the incident on March 22nd <\/p>\n

A Garda spokesman confirmed officers in Navan are investigating an alleged assault at a premises on Watergate Street in the town shortly before 2am on Sunday, March 22nd. <\/p>\n

Samim works as a supervisor at a hotel in Meath and has applied to become an Irish citizen. He has many friends in Ireland and said he was grateful for the fresh start his family received here. <\/p>\n

He said he had seen an increase in \u201chate\u201d and \u201cracism\u201d on social media, but never expected to be assaulted. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, we are all human. It doesn\u2019t matter what colour, what language. It\u2019s very sad for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abdullah said she and her family were shaken by the incident. Even before the assault, she had advised her siblings to avoid going to places alone or late at night. She had also asked her mother to stop wearing her headscarf in public, in case it drew negative attention.<\/p>\n

Abdullah said the situation was obviously different but she has started to feel like she did when her family was back in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI keep on calling them, I keep on asking where they are, if they are coming back from work, if everything is okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the oldest sibling, she said she just wanted to keep her brothers and sisters safe.<\/p>\n

Abdullah said the rise in anti-immigrant sentiment was also affecting her children. Her 10-year-old son has started to worry about the colour of his skin. <\/p>\n

After a holiday to Spain, he was \u201creally conscious\u201d his skin was darker. He asked her when he would become paler again as he had seen other children with darker skin get picked on.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he turned a bit brown, he wouldn\u2019t like it because he wants to be pale,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Abdullah said a lot of misinformation has been spread about immigrants online, including tropes they only come here for social welfare. Her husband has opened his own GP practice in Dublin and all of her siblings work.<\/p>\n

As part of her training, Abdullah has worked in a number of hospitals. On one occasion in an emergency department a patient told a colleague of hers, \u201cI don\u2019t want to see any non-Irish doctor\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was heartbreaking. But then the senior doctor said, \u2018Go and tell the patient all of the doctors are non-Irish. If you want to be seen, it has to be [one of them].\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the recent assault, Abdullah said her family had no plans to move.<\/p>\n

\u201cIreland is home, definitely,\u201d she said. \u201cI have always felt welcomed by everyone around me. It\u2019s just recently that things have changed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Afghan doctor who has lived in Ireland for more than a decade said she feared for her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[12686,45,93,61,1629,60,15949,21413],"class_list":{"0":"post-372941","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-afghanistan","9":"tag-an-garda-siochana","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-immigration","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-meath","15":"tag-taliban"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}