Brit Muslim woman sacked for refusing to wear burka wins ’sexual, religious discrimination’ case

LONDON - An industrial tribunal looking into the matter of a British Muslim woman, who was awarded over 13,500 pound after being sacked for refusing to wear a headscarf or burka at the estate agency where she worked, has ruled that she had been a victim of sexual and religious discrimination and that she would not have to behave in a way described by her employer.

According to the Daily Mail, the tribunal concluded: “We find that the respondent treated the claimant less favourably by dismissing her and not his white women employees because she would not cover her hair.”

“‘We agree with Ms Khan that the requirement is a mixture of the cultural and the religious in so far as it is derived from a particular interpretation of Islamic scriptures. As for sex discrimination, there was direct evidence that Ms Khan’s sex as a woman played a part in the decision to dismiss. Our impression of Khan was of an articulate young woman who genuinely needed a job and would not have behaved in the way described by Ghafoor,” it added.

Thirty-one-year-old Ghazala Khan was fired less than two weeks ago from her job at a company run by traditional Muslim businessman, Masood Ghafoor, simply because she refused to wear a headscarf.

Ghafoor told Khan, who had nine years experience in the trade, that his wife and female relatives all wore full veils or burkas, and that her parents had given her ‘far too much freedom’.

Khan was employed to run Ghafoor’s ‘Go Go Real Estate’ office in Leeds, West Yorkshire, in June 2009 and was awarded 13,566.67 pounds for injury to feelings, loss of earnings and unpaid holiday pay. (ANI)