By Neelam Rahim

While Marwa el-Sherbini was within the dock, recalling, however, that the defendant had affronted her for wearing the hijab when she asked him to let her son sit on a swing, that the same man strode across the Dresden court and plunged a knife into her eighteen times.

Her three-year-old son Mustafa was forced to observe as his mother slumped to the court floor.

Even her husband, Elvi Ali Okaz, could do nothing as the 28-year-old Russian stock controller being sued for insult and abuse took the lifetime of his pregnant wife. As Okaz ran to save her, he too was brought down, shot by a police officer who mistook him for the aggressor.

The Russian-born German man, Alex Wiens, was sentenced to life behind bars for the brutal murder of a pregnant head-scarved Egyptian woman, a criminal offence that sparked outrage within the Muslim world.

In a dramatic unpunctual twist, a document suddenly arrived from Russia showing that Wiens had been declared unfit for military service in 2001 owing to an “undifferentiated schizophrenic psychosis.”

Defence lawyers mentioned that the stabbing had not been planned, that Wiens forever carried a knife in his backpack, and that his medical speciality condition lessened the crime.

In March, the politician of Dresden, dirk David Hilbert, announced that a significant park within the German town was being renamed in memory of Marwa el-Sherbini.

The decision to rename the park ahead of the Dresden regional court coincided with the beginning of International Week against Racism. It’s hoped that the move can shed much light on hate crimes and racism and the harm they cause in society when proper political orientation is increasing.

Egypt’s Minister of migration and Expatriates’ Affairs, Nabila Makram, welcome the choice by the town of Dresden to rename the park after Sherbini. Love and tolerance, she said, are the sole means for security and safety to prevail all over. Makram added that Egyptians living abroad integrate well and customarily build positive contributions to their local communities.