#IllRideWithYou trends worldwide after Sydney hostage standoff


During Monday's hostage crisis in Sydney, some Muslims feared they would be attacked in retaliation for the actions of the lone gunman, Man Haron Monis.

In response, many Australians showed support by offering to ride public transit with those in religious attire.

The campaign started after Brisbane resident Rachael Jacobs posted on Facebook that she had seen a fearful Muslim woman on the train remove her hijab.

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"Like most people, she had been looking at her phone, then slowly started to unpin her scarf," Jacobs wrote in a piece for the Brisbane Times. "Tears sprang to my eyes, and I was struck by feelings of anger, sadness and bitterness. It was in this mind-set that I punched the first status update into my phone, hoping my friends would take a moment to think about the victims of the siege who were not in the cafe."

That status prompted Twitter user @SirTessa to start the hashtag #IllRideWithYou, which quickly started to trend locally on Twitter. It has now gone global.