London: The controversy over Muslim women wearing veils escalated on Sunday with Britain's Race Minister Phil Woolas demanding the sacking of a Muslim teaching assistant who insisted on wearing the garment.
Woolas said Aishah Azmi was "denying the right of children to a full education", and had put herself in a position where she could not "do her job".
The Communities and Local Government minister, whose brief includes race relations, made his intervention in comments to the Sunday Mirror.
Azmi has been suspended from her job at Headfield Church of England junior school in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, and is now taking her case to an employment tribunal.
"She should be sacked. She has put herself in a position where she can't do her job. She cannot teach a classroom of children wearing a veil. You cannot have a teacher who wears a veil simply because there are men in the room," Woolas said.
"She is denying the right of children to a full education by insisting that she wears the veil," he added. Woolas also said that permitting Azmi to specify that she only worked with females discriminated against men.
"If she is saying that she won't work with men, she is taking away the right of men to work in schools. By insisting that she will wear the veil if men are there, she's saying she will work with women, but not men. That's sexual discrimination. No head teacher could agree to that," he said.
The controversial comments by House of Commons leader Jack Straw that he would prefer Muslim women not to wear veils when they meet him stirred up a major debate in Britain.
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