Thaindian News

Washington, Mar 9 (ANI): A Muslim documentary maker allegedly faced racial attacks and called racial epithets in the United States after he encroached into a house party, which he had not been invited to.

The Daily Mail quoted Usama Alshaibi as claiming that he was repeatedly punched and kicked by four men after he arrived at the party of Sunday in Fairfield, a Iowa City of about 9,500 residents where he moved to with his wife last year.

Forty-one-year-old Alshaibi, who was born in Baghdad but grew up in Iowa City, said that the men called him an epithet, a term used to refer to Arabs and ‘Osama bin Laden’, and assaulted him before he managed to escape.

The filmmaker is producing a film called ‘American Arab’ for Chicago-based Kartemquin Films to showcase how Arabs are being discriminated in America, and some people have raised suspicion that the ‘attack’ was a publicity stunt. However, Alshaibi denied such allegations.

“This isn’t how I would promote my film. I thought I was going to die,” the paper quoted him, as saying.

Police had found Alshaibi bleeding from his forehead and nose in the early hours of Sunday morning, reportedly crying in a car park after the supposed attack.

On Tuesday, Fairfield Police Chief Julie Harvey said that officers believe Alshaibi’s claims are credible because he was clearly assaulted, and they continue to search for the alleged assailants.

As of now, the filmmaker has not been able to figure out the house where he was allegedly assaulted because he was reportedly intoxicated when he had entered the house. (ANI)