Waitress attacked for serving alcohol during Ramadan

A French waitress was allegedly verbally abused and slapped across the face by two Muslim men for serving alcohol during Ramadan.

Streets in Nice

The incident happened at a café in the French city of Nice on Wednesday when the woman, a practising Muslim of Tunisian origin, was set upon by two passers-by, as reported by The Telegraph.

Speaking to the paper the waitress, who has not been named, said: “I was all alone in the bar when two passers-by suddenly appeared. They pointed to the bottles of alcohol behind the bar, then one of them told me in Arabic: ‘You should be ashamed of yourself serving alcohol in the Ramadan period.’

One of the men then shouted in arabic: “If I was God, I would have hung you”, to which the waitress replied: “You’re not God and cannot judge me.”

Turning to leave the café, the men then abruptly turned back to the woman and slapped her in the face, knocking her to the floor and leaving her with a black eye.

Police said they had identified the men using CCTV but had yet to locate them.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and is observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting to commemorate the first revelation of the Quran to Muhammad. It traditionally begins the morning after the sighting of the crescent moon and lasts 30 days, during which Muslims abstain from eating and drinking from dawn to dusk.

The fast is broken with a meal known as iftar, and the month is followed by the Eid al-Fitr festival.