British Muslim teaching assistant denies refusing to remove veil

Muslim women wearing veils read a newspaper article as they protest outside a constituency meeting with Britain's Leader of the House of Commons Jack Straw, in Blackburn, northern England on Saturday. – Reuters

14 October 2006

LONDON - A Muslim teaching assistant who has been suspended by her school in northern England denied Saturday that she had refused to take off her veil while in class.

Aishah Azmi, 24, told BBC radio she had only insisted on wearing it in the company of male colleagues but had accepted to remove it while in class with her pupils at Headfield Church of England junior school in Dewsbury.

“Specifically, the management assertion was that you have to take it off while in school. It’s to that I answered that I cannot take it off in front of a male colleague,” she told the BBC.

“I have no problem with the children, I say I prefer (to work) with a female teacher, but if that’s not possible I can’t take it off in front of a male colleague,” Azmi said.

“It was never about taking it off with the children. I was ready to do that,” she said.

Kirklees Council, the school’s local administrative body, confirmed that Azmi’s case had gone to an employment tribunal and that she would remain suspended until it had reached a verdict.

Stressing that the action had “nothing to do” with religion, the school is reported to have deemed face-to-face to face contact was essential in her role as a bilingual support worker.

Azmi also told BBC radio that her 11-year-old pupils had “very good English” and had “never complained” that they had trouble understanding while she was wearing a veil, which only reveals her eyes.

The Daily Mirror said the school asked her to remove the veil after pupils struggled to understand English lessons because they could not see her lips move.

Azmi is a bilingual support worker at the school where most of the seven-to-11-year-old pupils are of Pakistani or Indian origin.

The area’s lawmaker, Labour’s Shahid Malik, a Muslim himself, said he thought that the request to remove the veil was “utterly reasonable”.

Her suspension came days after former British foreign secretary and current cabinet minister Jack Straw provoked controversy by revealing that he asked Muslim women visiting his constituency office to remove their veils.

Straw held his first constituency meeting in Blackburn, northwest England, Friday since his controversial comments and it passed off without incident.