Milan student
La Repubblica

An Egyptian student was called a "Taliban s**t" as he walked through the streets of Milan dressed as an Imam in the latest incarnation of a social experiment that sees subjects recording the public's reaction on a hidden camera.

Carrying a copy of the Koran and wearing white robes, Hamdi Mahisen, 30, was recorded by an accomplice on a hidden camera as he walked around the north Italian city for five hours, in a bid to gauge attitudes to Muslims.

During the experiment he was insulted by members of the public, with one calling him a "Taliban s**t", another asking "Have you seen the Isis?" and another wondering "Imagine if he has a gun under his tunic."

The video mirrors the format of one released last week by French Jewish journalist Zvika Klein who recorded the insults he received while walking the streets of Paris for ten hours wearing a kippah and that of a Swedish journalist who was attacked while conducting a similar experiment in the Swedish city of Malmo.

"This social experiment was to check the tolerance of Milan's citizens towards Muslims or someone who is dressed as an Imam," Mahisen told La Repubblica.

There has been a surge in Islamophobic incidents in several countries following the recent terror attacks in Paris and the emergence of Islamic State in the Middle East.

The Italian anti-immigrant Lega Nord party passed a bill in Lombardy in January, of which Milan is capital, making it almost impossible for new mosques to be built, and heavily monitoring existing Islamic places of worship.

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