Mosque woman wins sex bias payout

A MUSLIM woman has been awarded nearly £35,000 after she suffered an 18-month campaign of racial and sexual discrimination at Europe’s largest mosque.

The “spiteful” treatment of Nahid Mahmoud, a secretary at the Islamic Cultural Centre and Central Mosque in Regent’s Park, London, amounted to an “exploitation of the weakness of women in Islamic culture”, an employment tribunal was told.

Mrs Mahmoud was accused by a senior member of staff of fraud, black magic, bullying, using dirty words and “wasting valuable office hours in idle conversation”.

The tribunal heard that Younes Teinaz, head of administration and human resources at the mosque, also accused her repeatedly of being in the country illegally, even after she had proved that this was not the case. Most of the claims were made in letters to the director-general of the mosque, Ahmed al-Dubayan, for whom she worked as a personal assistant.

Mrs Mahmoud, whose 13-year-old son was so distressed by the harassment that he ran away from home, had to take five weeks off work because of the “serious and prolonged campaign of ill-treatment”. A psychiatrist diagnosed a “major depressive episode” and she still suffers symptons of depression.

Referring to the treatment she received, Mrs Mahmoud said: “I have never seen anything like it in my life.”An award to her of £34,751 for sexual and racial discrimination was made jointly against the mosque and Dr Teinaz.

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