Valencia Pool Denies Entry to Muslim Woman in Hijab, Sparking Hate Crime Investigation

"Go back to your f***ing country", "what disgusting clothes you’re wearing", "if you take one more step, I’ll give you one you won’t forget". These are the words spoken by the security guards towards Fadila Said, a woman who, accompanied by a Moroccan friend, took her two children to the municipal pool of Benicalap (Valencia). The incident occurred three weeks ago. "I arrived at the gate, my friend went through, but they didn’t let me in. They asked me if I was wearing a swimsuit and I told them no, that I was just there for my children to swim. They then told me I couldn’t enter," she recounts to Sport.es.

Yet her friend, who was not wearing a swimsuit, like most of the other women accompanying their children, passed without any problem. "I asked to know the reason why they wouldn’t let me through and they started insulting me. So I filed a complaint and left," explains Fadila, who returned to this pool last Friday and was again turned away. "They stopped me, and when they asked me if I was wearing a swimsuit, I showed it to them. They asked me if I was going to swim this time, I said no, then they told me I couldn’t enter either," she denounces.

Since she did not receive any explanation for this second refusal, Fadila had to "call the police". Before the police arrived, the security guards began to hurl racist insults at the mother and threatened to hit her if she did not leave. "I went out to sit on a bench outside, but they sprayed it with water so I couldn’t sit down," she said. The company that runs the pool claims not to have let Fadila in because she "wanted to bathe in street clothes, which is prohibited". The woman, on the other hand, denounces a case of racism.

Fadila has lived in Valencia for 22 years and says she has never been a victim of such strong racism. She regrets that her 8 and 5 year old children witnessed this scene. "When I got home that evening, my son grabbed me and said: ’It’s stupid to have a Spanish identity card and say we’re Spanish,’ then he said: ’Mommy, I don’t want to be black anymore.’" He always says he’s black, without shame, on the contrary. But that day, he told me he didn’t want to be black or Arab anymore," laments Fadila, noting an increase in cases of racism in the city.