THE Muslim teaching assistant who was suspended after she refused to remove her veil in the classroom lost her discrimination case yesterday, but was awarded £1,000 for hurt feelings.

Aishah Azmi, 24, said that she was disappointed by the ruling but vowed to continue to fight for her right to wear the niqab. She also attacked Tony Blair and other ministers who had voiced support for the position taken by the school in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, where she worked.

Speaking at a press conference in which she was dressed from head to toe in black, her face obscured but for a narrow slit at the eyes, Mrs Azmi claimed that the Government was treating ethnic minorities “as outcasts”. She pledged to continue to uphold her religious beliefs, which she said obliged her to wear the veil, and said that she was “fearful for the consequences for Muslim women in this country”.

Mrs Azmi remains suspended on full pay from her job as a bilingual support assistant at Headfield Church of England Junior School.

Most pupils at the school speak English as a second language and there were concerns that some were finding it difficult to understand what Mrs Azmi was saying because the veil covered her mouth.

Mrs Azmi was suspended in February and — unless she is sacked — will continue to receive her salary, thought to be about £15,000, pending the outcome of her appeal against the tribunal’s decision. Her legal team indicated that they were prepared to take the case to the European Court of Justice. They are applying for legal aid.

The tribunal sided with the school on all substantive issues relating to the veil, but ruled that Kirklees education authority had victimised Mrs Azmi in the way in which it handled her complaint. It ordered the authority to pay her £1,000 for “injury to her feelings”.

The tribunal had sat in July but, after comments on the case by ministers this month, it added a paragraph to its ruling stating that it was “most unfortunate” that politicians and others had made comment on a case that was sub-judice.

Kirklees council welcomed the finding that it had not discriminated against or harassed Mrs Azmi. Jim Dodds, its cabinet member for education, said that the council actively promoted and encouraged equality and diversity and regretted that it could not reach a compromise with Mrs Azmi.

He said: “The school and the local authority had to balance the rights of the children to receive the best quality education possible and Mrs Azmi’s desire to express her cultural beliefs. The decision that Mrs Azmi should not wear a veil while communicating with children in class was taken after a monitoring period where the effect of wearing the veil on teaching and learning was studied.”

Shahid Malik, Dewsbury’s MP, said that the tribunal’s ruling was “a victory for common sense”.

Mrs Azmi, however, was determined to fight on. “It is clear that discrimination against me has taken place and I am disappointed that the tribunal has not been able to uphold that part of my claim,” she said.

“Muslim women who wear the veil are not aliens and politicians need to recognise that what they say can have a very dangerous impact on the lives of the minorities they treat as outcasts. Integration requires people like me to be in the workplace so that people can see that we are not to be feared or mistrusted.”

Nick Whittingham, manager of Kirklees Law Centre, representing Mrs Azmi, said that the Prime Minister, who this week described the veil as “a mark of separation”, and his colleagues would have done better to have kept quiet.

Mrs Azmi started working at Headfield in September last year, giving language assistance in English and maths lessons. After refusing to take off her veil she went off sick for a number of months.

WHAT MRS AZMI SAID

“I teach perfectly well with my veil on. Give it a chance —- that’s what I call integration.”

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