A small victory for the idea that workers should be treated equally and held to a uniform set of expectations, with none "more equal" than others. An update on this story. "Muslim worker loses out in Tesco booze bid," from the Evening Telegraph, October 29 (thanks to Eleutheria ´H Thanatos):
A DERBY Muslim who sued Tesco for religious discrimination after he was asked to handle crates of alcohol has lost his case.
Mohammed Ahmed, who worked in a warehouse, said the job was against his Islamic beliefs.
The 32-year-old, of Upper Dale Road, Normanton, also accused Tesco of victimisation and harassment during a three-day employment tribunal in Birmingham.
His job at the supermarket giant's Lichfield depot involved the transportation of various goods, including alcoholic drinks, on fork-lift trucks.
The Saudi Arabian national told the tribunal he was not informed that he would be handling alcohol when he started the job last year.
He said he was considering appealing against the decision after being told his legal action had failed.
He said: "It's not fair but what can I do? They [Tesco] were not taking into account my religious beliefs. I will consult with solicitors."
The situation came to a head before Christmas last year, when more alcohol was ferried to the Tesco warehouse in preparation for the festive season.
Mr Ahmed told the tribunal that he was not made aware he would be required to handle alcohol when he started the job, a claim denied by Tesco.
He also said he had not visited any of Derby's three Tesco stores and was unaware alcohol was served by the shop. He admitted, however, that he had been to Sainsbury's, Asda and Lidl stores.
He refused to touch alcohol because it was against his religious principles as a Muslim, he said, and asked to be found other work.
He told the tribunal that Tesco failed to co-operate and alleged he was told by a supervisor, "You do the job or go home", a claim also denied by the store.
Mr Ahmed, who moved to Derby in 2006, complained to Tesco but claimed he was treated unfairly as a result. After eight months working for the company, he left in protest.
Speaking after the three-day tribunal in Birmingham, he had said: "It's in our religion that we are not allowed to handle alcohol. In the UK there's equal opportunities that should protect me and my beliefs."
Tesco said Mr Ahmed was made aware during his employment induction course that he would be handling alcohol, and that every effort was made to find him an alternative role in the warehouse.
A "Saudian Arabian national" suing on Islamic supremacy grounds? Ah, Eurabia, how quickly thou dost grow.
The only part of the article I find fault with is Tesco's claim 'that every effort was made to find him an alternative role in the warehouse', thereby accepting that some are "more equal" than others.
"It's not fair but what can I do? They [Tesco] were not taking into account my religious beliefs.
Why should they, they're your idiotic beliefs?
This looks like just an attempt to get back on the unemployment dole, by reason of not being able to find suitable work. The guy is a Muhammedan Andy Capp. What did he expect, taking a job in a supermarket warehouse? And it's not as though he was being asked to drink the stuff. For heaven's sake, the booze is in bottles, which are in a crate, which is on his forklift. If it didn't say so on the crate, he'd never know what was in it.
And if he can't transport crates of booze, I guess he can't transport crates of pork and beans, or canned hams.
In addition, alcohol is found in lots of other products. Just looking around the house, I've found extract of vanilla -- 70 proof!, almost as much as whiskey -- and cough medicine -- 10 proof, as much as most beers.
And then, alcohol is in most gasoline -- 5 to 10%. The Moslem clerk at my nearest gas station is in closer contact with alcohol than this fork-lift driver.
The answer is for employers who manufacture, transport, or sell anything with pork or alcohol it it to refuse employment to Moslems on the grounds that they don't want to offend their "religious sensibilities". Stores where these products are sold should not even let Moslems in to shop there.
He said: "It's not fair but what can I do? They [Tesco] were not taking into account my religious beliefs. I will consult with solicitors."
When, in a secular society, do we need to cater his religious views, or anyone per-se?
This mohammedan thinks he is the last cookie in the jar, the last bacon in the pack, the last intelligent human being on earth, the most capable... ha!
I find it irritating, does this crazed mohammedan ever used toothpaste, mouthwash, cough syrup and any other alcohol based products in his life... or is he aware that those products contain alcohol?
I find it irritating, does this crazed mohammedan ever used toothpaste, mouthwash, cough syrup and any other alcohol based products in his life... or is he aware that those products contain alcohol?
Posted by: Dr.CancerMan
Short answer: They don't use them. They use camel's urine instead, as endorsed by the prophet hisself.
ebonystone,
I've wondered exactly the same thing about the gasoline.
To a rational individual, "no alcohol" means, "don't ingest alcohol". Even: "do not associate with those ingesting alcohol."
What I want to know is, how do they get from there to the point where sterilizing and sanitizing with alcohol is haram? It's not the same kind of alcohol. The alcohol in gasoline isn't the same kind of alcohol.
It's all just perversity, being used as a tool for lawsuits, and I'm glad the jackass lost the case.
Well done, UK!
Posted by: ebonystone
They must be very...clean(!), and smell...very nice(!)
PS: I'm being sarcastic
"What I want to know is, how do they get from there to the point where sterilizing and sanitizing with alcohol is haram? It's not the same kind of alcohol. The alcohol in gasoline isn't the same kind of alcohol.
"It's all just perversity, being used as a tool for lawsuits, and I'm glad the jackass lost the case."
Posted by: Abscedere
I agree that it's mostly just trouble-making, and trying to stake a claim for special treatment. As you say, the alcohol in cleaners and sanitizers is a different kind, not produced from organic material. I'm not so sure about the alcohol in gasoline however. As the farm-state congressmen point out: "we grow it here" in the form of corn. And corn is the primary ingredient of bourbon.
"In the UK there's equal opportunities that should protect me and my beliefs."
Uh-uh. In the Free World there's free market capitalism. That means the employer's way or the highway, which he and his beliefs are more than welcome to hit, and find another job.
"It's not fair but what can I do? They [Tesco] were not taking into account my religious beliefs."
It's perfectly fair. He didn't have to take the job. He wasn't taking into account that he doesn't live in a sharia hellhole anymore. He wasn't taking into account the UK's beliefs.
"You do the job or go home"
I hope they said that and I wish they hadn't denied it. They had every right to tell him that and it was/would have been the right thing to do.
How did he get in? Was he a "refugee"? From what? A Muslim refugee from Muslim-supremacist Saudi Arabia? Or was he simply against the regime of the Al Saud? If so, does that mean that anyone, in the vast and numerous Islam-dominated lands, where Lords of Misrule are everywhere to be found (and Islamic despots stay in power because Muslims are taught that they are merely "slaves of Allah," taught the habit of submission, though occasionally another would-be ruler, some colonel or general (or group of them) decides he wants to be Mr. Big and stages a coup, and that is how "regime change" happens in most of the Muslim and Arab lands).
How did he get in? Why is he there? Who decides these things? This has to be asked, loudly, over and over? Will he ever fit into, comfortably or not, the land of Great Britain? Will he ever accept, comfortably or not, the Infidel legal and political institutions, the social arrangements and understandings, that make the country he has been allowed into (a great and rare privilege, but he does not show the kind of signs of gratitude that one might expect, that were exhibited, for example, by refugees from the Nazis and the Communists, or by poor peasants fleeing poverty in Palermo, or famine in Galway, or pogroms in the Pale. No: he shows signs of wanting to change British ways to conform to Muslim ways and demands or, in the alternative, to live high on the British taxpayer, through such a lawsuit. He isn't the first to engage in such lawsuits, and he's not the last.
The expense, the disruption, the distraction, the upset, the whole thing, and ultimately, the sheer physical danger, that this man, and his co-slaves of Allah, pose to the Western world, has to be understood, analyzed, and the incredible costs toted up. And then stop all such mistakes in immigration, and work to reverse that large-scale Muslim presence which, everyone of sense all over the lands of Western Europe has come to realize, results inevitably in a situation that, for both the indigenous Infidels, and for other, but non-Muslim immigrants, has become much more unpleasant, expensive, and physically dangerous, than it would be without such a large-scale Muslim presence.
No one can deny the truth of that. The only disagreement comes over how to best deal with the situation. The best way to deal with it is firmly, implacably, and without holding out false hopes, confirmed nowhere in the world, of "integration" of large numbers of Muslims successfully, and peacefully, into a non-Muslim society with no changes forced upon that society that result in a permanent diminishment of the freedoms, and easygoing ways, of the non-Muslims in that society. Such a result has nowhere happened, in the past 1350 years. There is no reason to think that that pollyannish hope will come true now. There is every reason -- see the Qur'an and Hadith and Sira, look at Muslim behavior toward non-Muslims over the past 1350 years, and today, in every country where Muslims rule -- to think otherwise.
He said: "It's not fair but what can I do? They [Tesco] were not taking into account my religious beliefs. I will consult with solicitors."
Just a thought, but you could move back to Saudi Arabia.
He isn't handling alcohol, he is handling bottles and cans.
Congrats to Tesco. Looks like some Brits still have the ability to think clearly.
And, as Mr. Fitnah said, this guy wasn't asked to drink alcohol, or touch it--just bottles and cans.
I wonder what kind of job Mo Ahmed decides to apply to next? Maybe the local pub after which he sues the owner because he was forced to serve alcohol against his religious belief? How about the local restaurant where he sues the owner for being forced to serve bacon, pork chops or spare ribs? Maybe the local bookstore because he was, you guessed it, "forced" to sell a copy of The Three Little Pigs.
Oh, the possibilities.
Tesco should receive polite letters from their non-Muslim British customers and employees, thanking them for sticking to their guns, and expressing satisfaction over the outcome of this lawsuit.
The article does not name any names of those on the tribunal that made the decision, but if UK resisters of jihad make the effort they can probably find out who they were and, once again, express satisfaction with the judgement.
Letters to the editor of the Evening Telegraph, expressing relief that the Muslim lost his case, and explaining why such relief is appropriate, should also be sent.
There are portions of Mr Fitzgerald's posting above that might be usefully included in such letters.
And Mr Spencer's phrase - 'stealth jihad' - can be introduced, also, into all such letters.
I live a stones throw away from this headbanging dingbat.
Normanton is the muslim hood but I've always lived and have watched the changes..mostly unsavoury changes.
within a few hundred yards there are two pakistani supermarkets and neither sell alcohol and one practices sharia by stealth by not employing any women..it's a strange sight indeed to see every checkout staffed by a scowling muslim male..maybe he needs to take his resume to one of them.
I've always shopped at Tesco and order on the internet for home deliveries.
I think i'll place a big order for dog food later..my dog daisy will be very pleased.
I think some Tesco vodka might be on the order too..
cheers to all
Y'all remember the smirking "hairstylist" who was turned down for a job opening (because she insisted on wearing the hijab), and took the salon owner to court?
Well, for future reference, salon owners might bear in mind that many of the products they use contain alcohol of one kind or another.
With this in mind, said salon owner could say: "I'm so sorry dear, but we use products which contain alcohol. I can't, in good conscience, hire you, for fear of corrupting you in the eyes of Allah."
There it is--a way of showing concern for the Muslim's religious beliefs.
And corn is the primary ingredient of bourbon.
Posted by: ebonystone
No, no, and no some more. Barley is the primary ingredient of bourbon, after water. I don’t think any corn makes its way into real Kentucky bourbon. That would be corn liquor, or good old fashioned ‘shine.
This is the kind of story that makes me smile :)
A poor muslim loses a court case because it doesn't want to do its job. Haha haha haha. I love it!