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| Britain |
| Man sacked for beard size |
| 2004-10-16 |
| A young Muslim railway worker who claims he was sacked after a row over the length of his beard has brought what is believed to be the first case against an employer under new laws which ban discrimination on religious grounds. Unfair treatment on grounds of race and sex have long been illegal but Tony Blair's government extended legislation to cover religious discrimination last year, probably in an attempt to placate Britain's 1.6 million Muslim population which has felt vulnerable in the wake of the Iraq war. For many years, Muslims have campaigned for legislation to ban religious discrimination but successive governments have stood out against this, partly because of the difficulty in finding a legal distinction between mainstream religions and "cults". The rarely used law on blasphemy covered only Christianity. An employment tribunal in London is now being told that Mohsin Mohmed, 23, a customer services assistant, was sacked from his job with Virgin West Coast Trains after he refused to cut his beard. He was asked repeatedly to trim his beard by senior Virgin staff at Euston, a mainline London station. When Mohmed, from Ilford, Essex, refused to serve alcoholic drinks to customers in the first-class lounge, a manager suggested he should wear gloves. Mohmed told the hearing he reduced his beard to "one fist length" — about four inches — but at the end of a six-month probationary period he was sacked anyway in February this year. He has now brought a claim of racial and religious discrimination and harassment against Virgin West Coast Trains. He has been growing his beard since he was 18, Mohmed told the tribunal. "According to my teachings a male from the Islamic faith cannot trim his beard shorter than a fist length," he said. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #3 âAccording to my teachings a male from the Islamic faith cannot trim his beard shorter than a fist length,â he said. Muslims who cut it any shorter were âin reality sinningâ, he commented. Yet another reason why Islam should become a historical footnote. Preferrably, in the immediate future. For my entire life I have always attempted to maintain a sense of religious tolerance. At this point, Islam's endless atrocities and vicious oppression of women have become nothing more than a constant outrage against modern civilization and I now hope to see it dismantled in my lifetime. However much I detest discrimination, I am on the verge of simply hating Muslims, one and all. Normally, I would be appalled at my current descent into intolerance if it weren't for the single fact that Islam is the direct cause of a majority of this world's problems. These twisted f&%ks want to restart the Holocaust's genocide. Should Islam fail to immediately outgrow this infantile fixation upon exterminating all of the Jews, I say we should let such extinction begin, starting and ending with this world's entire Muslim population. Let them taste their own bile for a change. Islam's antagonism for all other cultures should be their death knell. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-10-16 7:53:30 PM |
| #2 "Never trust anyone with a Beard"(â¢). Note that I Have been on strike against Gillette since 1970. |
| Posted by: dorf 2004-10-16 6:58:48 PM |
| #1 Britainâs 1.6 million Muslim population. God save the Queen and everyone else. |
| Posted by: Mark Espinola 2004-10-16 3:46:13 PM |