Veil row teacher loses discrimination case

LONDON - A tribunal in Britain has ruled that a Muslim teaching assistant had not been discriminated against when the school where she worked asked her to remove her veil.

The case of 24-year-old Aishah Azmi against Kirklees Council in West Yorkshire has attracted nationwide interest after former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Muslim women who wore full veils made community relations difficult.

Straw had said he would prefer women not to wear veils because they acted as a "visible statement of separation and difference."

The veiled Azmi told a news conference afterwards that her veil, which leaves just the eyes exposed, had never hindered her teaching.

"The veil does not cause a barrier. I can teach perfectly well with the veil on," she said, adding that veiled women were not "aliens".

The publicity surrounding the case has highlighted the sensitive issue of separation among Britain's 1.8 million Muslims.

A growing conviction the government has to tackle segregation in the wake of last year's suicide bomb attacks by British Islamists which killed 52 in London has led ministers to broach a topic once considered too delicate to raise.

Even Prime Minister Tony Blair stepped into the highly charged debate about Muslim women's use of the full veil this week, calling it a "mark of separation".

Headfield Church of England Junior School in Dewsbury had said Azmi should remove the veil in order to communicate. When she refused, they suspended her.

Yesterday, a Kirklees Council official said Azmi's claims of direct and indirect discrimination and of harassment had been thrown out by the employment tribunal.

But, Azmi was awarded £1,100 ($3,100) for victimisation and because the council failed to follow grievance procedures correctly.

Azmi's lawyer said they intend to appeal and possibly take the case to the European Court of Justice.

- REUTERS