Teacher at U.K. Islamic school who exposed "apes and pigs" texts receives
£70,000 settlement for unfair dismissal
An update on this story. "Teacher accuses Islamic school of racism," by
Alexandra Frean for the Times Online:
A former teacher at an Islamic school, who alleged that it taught an
offensive and racist view of non-Muslims, has been awarded £70,000 by an
employment tribunal after winning his case for unfair dismissal.
Colin Cook told the tribunal in Watford that pupils were taught from
Arabic books that likened Jews and Christians to "monkeys" and "pigs" at
The
King Fahad Academy, which is funded and run by the Saudi Arabian
Government.
The tribunal ruled that Mr Cook, a British Muslim, was unfairly
dismissed
from his £36,000-a-year post at the school in Acton, West London, in
December 2006 after blowing the whistle on systematic cheating at a GCSE
exam.
The panel found that the school created a "smokescreen" to try to
justify
his dismissal after 18 years' unblemished service.
It awarded Mr Cook £58,800 in compensation for loss of earnings and
£10,500 for injury to feelings. But it rejected his claim that the school
discriminated against him on racial grounds.
Mr Cook told the hearing that after leaving the school another member of
staff gave him extracts from an Arabic textbook, which encouraged students
to believe that all religions other than Islam were worthless.
The books referred to "the repugnant characteristics of the Jews".
Another
passage said: "Those whom God has cursed and with whom he is angry, he has
turned into monkeys and pigs. They wor****p Satan."
Mr Cook alleged that the books were spreading race hatred. "They should
not be brought into this country and they should not be used in this
country," he said.
The school denied ever teaching any form of racial hatred and insisted
that the offending passages in the books were "misinterpreted" and were
never used in class. But it later got rid of the books.
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