Fired After Criticizing the Hijab at IKEA

Here’s a story from Norway of a victory — a small one, anyway — against the regime of Multiculturalism.

Politically correct oppression has become so widespread and successful that any rollback, however minor, is worth celebrating. This case was decided narrowly, and does not affirm the defendant’s basic freedom of speech and his right to criticize Islam.

But still, he won.

It’s also very telling that the defendant in this case is a refugee from the mullahs in Iran. Here’s the story from yesterday’s Aftenposten, as translated by our Danish correspondent Kepiblanc:

Fired After Criticizing Hijab

When IKEA employee Ibrahim Batmani criticized the use of the hijab on the job he was labeled “racist” and fired. Now the Iranian-born assistant dishwasher defeated the furniture giant in court.

According to the recent verdict in Oslo City Court the problems began when Batmani, 47, wanted to shake hands in order to bid a new female colleague welcome at the luncheon table. She refused to shake hands due to her religion.

Batmani explained to her that she didn’t need to wear the hijab in Norway, because “Norway is a free country”. She replied that it was none of his business, and said that Batmani had blamed Islam for all the bombings and wars going on everywhere. In despair the female employee took the rest of the day off. The incident ended with a warning to Batmani from IKEA, who felt that the Iranian had treated his colleague in a racist manner.

“This is in conflict with IKEA’s policy and values and it is not acceptable for our employees to behave like this,” the warning said.

More trouble

Just before Christmas another episode took place. Batmani had involved himself in a discussion with his Norwegian boss and once again expressed his opinion that employees shouldn’t wear the hijab on the job At the subsequent meeting in the dishwashing department he voiced his respect towards people, but that IKEA should decide, “not the Muslims”.

“Norway is a fine country and I just want to say that in Norway you’re not forced to wear the hijab if you don’t want to. I don’t care if you wear the hijab privately. My mother wears the hijab,” says Batmani to Aftenposten.

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The discussion with his boss ended with a dismissal notice due to racism and subordination to written warnings. But now the Oslo City Court has reversed the sacking.

Not racist

According to current case law a substantial offence is needed in order to justify dismissal or firing, the court writes. During the trial IKEA admitted that the statement was not racist, but the furniture giant fears that Batmani will continue what, in their opinion, is inappropriate conduct towards colleagues wearing the hijab.

“The court finds this fear exaggerated. It is hard to imagine that Batmani now doesn’t understand that IKEA will not allow such an attitude,” writes the court, which finds the firing unjustified and invalid.

“I am in no way a racist,” says Batmani who now — unaffected — continues his dishwashing at IKEA, a job he has held for almost ten years. The 47-year-old came to Norway as a refugee in 1994. Until then he had been in jail in Iran because he answered “NO” on a questionnaire in which the authorities asked whether one was in favor or against Muslim mullah-rule, he explains.

“We take cognizance of the verdict and will, of course, study it carefully prior to a decision on how to proceed. To us it’s a matter of staff policy which we don’t want to discuss in public out of respect for those involved,” says IKEA spokesman Christen Roehnebaek.

Kepiblanc adds his own commentary to this story:

IKEA chairman and founder Ingvar Kamprad is well know for his (former?) Nazi sympathies.

There’s a lot of information here.

IKEA got very bad press last year here in Denmark when they cancelled all Christmas events such as Christmas trees, traditional decorations and company lunches with roast pork, snaps, cookies and whatnot. Public opinion and outrage forced them to reverse that.

As opposed to other major companies IKEA designed special headscarves for their Muslim employees. Other companies, such as MAERSK, BILKA and COOP just said: Company dress-code or bugger off.

Now, if the Swedish Motoon affair had taken a “Danish” direction I’m sure IKEA would have acted like Swedish-Danish Diary giant ARLA did: flattering and brown-nosing the Barbaristans in order to sell their crap. (ARLA FOODS — a.k.a. ALLAH-FOOLS suffers a nation-wide boycott in Denmark due to this). When the Motoons affair was at its peak I was very confused to see the ongoing US campaign “Buy Danish” advertising products from ARLA, such as Havarti cheese.

Anyway, it’s comforting that the “Danish Cultural Elite” — the politically correct segment — cringe at the slightest mention of IKEA furniture: “Extremely bad taste”, “plebeian style” etc.

Hat tip: LN.