MUSLIM BIZ GAL BEATEN

MUSLIM BIZ GAL BEATEN
September 16, 2007 -- The Muslim owner of a high-end nail and facial salon that caters to the likes of Jennifer Lopez was beaten and robbed yesterday in what Long Island cops called a bias attack.

The attack followed two weeks of phone calls in which Iranian-American Zohreh Assemi was called a "terrorist" and told to "get out of town," friends and family said.

She was opening her store in Locust Valley at around 6:30 a.m. when two men came out of a public bathroom and forced her inside the salon.

They smashed her hand with a hammer, sliced her with a boxcutter and kicked her before taking about $2,000 in cash and scrawling anti-Muslim slurs on her mirrors, sources said.

She was treated at North Shore University Hospital at Manhasset.

"I'm in pain. I can't talk," sobbed a shaken Assemi, 52, as she left her store late yesterday afternoon.

"They said, 'Your kind isn't welcomed here. You don't belong here,' " said Ginny Russo, a friend and customer. "You don't do that to people. That's so wrong."


http://www.nypost.com/seven/09162007/news/regionalnews/muslim_biz_gal_beaten.htm