A Muslim recruitment manager has successfully sued for religious harassment after he was instructed to remove a social media post accusing a fellow professional of being ‘far right’ following the Southport murders.

Abdalah Al-Abasi used Linkedin to alert his professional network against engaging with a consultant who had commented on ‘Islamic grooming gangs’ on the same platform, the employment tribunal heard.

Mr. Al-Abasi, who identifies as Muslim and was earning over £100,000 annually, was warned by his superiors that there would be ‘consequences’ if he did not take down his post.

The tribunal, however, determined that Mr. Al-Abasi had ‘grounds’ for being offended by the original LinkedIn post, concluding that his employers fostered an ‘intimidating and hostile environment’ by requesting its removal.

Mr Al-Abasi will now receive compensation for injury to feelings as a result of the success of his claim for religious harassment.

The tribunal in central London heard he started work for Eden Brown Built Environment in November 2020 as a Divisional Manager.

During the hearing, it was revealed that he left Iraq and settled in the UK with his family in 2000. He informed the panel that he is ‘not a particularly devout or observant Muslim.’

In August 2024, he expressed disapproval of a post by a recruitment consultant, unnamed by the tribunal, which read: ‘For over two decades Islamic grooming gangs have torched and raped tens of thousands of white British girls, in the name of religious and racist bigotry.’

‘They take to the streets calling for Jihad, calling for Jewish people to be killed, killing thousands of people across UK and Europe whilst shouting Allhu Akbar, beheading a French teacher in the middle of a French city * removing his head! for drawing a picture * all of this and more.

‘Literal racism.’

The tribunal found that the reference to ‘Islamic grooming gangs’ was ‘distorting and potentially aimed to incite antipathy towards Muslims’.

It also said that ‘his message was one which [Mr Al-Abasi] as a Muslim understandably took exception to’.

It said: ‘The Linkedin messages giving rise to this claim need to be seen in the context of the relevant background.

‘This comprised the febrile atmosphere, particularly online, following the murder of three British children at a nursery in Southport on 29 July 2024.’

Violence spread across England last summer following the fatal stabbing of three girls in Southport.

Axel Rudakubana targeted a Taylor Swift themed dance class in Southport on July 29, where he murdered six-year-old Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine.

The tribunal continued: ‘In the days that followed there was considerable speculation and, in some instances, provocative and inciting online communications regarding the background and religion of the assailant.

‘There then followed a series of riots, primarily in northern towns, to include attacks on hotels and other buildings holding asylum seekers.’

Mr Al-Abasi wrote a LinkedIn post in response to the recruitment consultant which said: ‘For any Recruitment Consultant that is seeking Rec2Rec help to find a new role please do not work with this individual below if you feel uncomfortable reading the below.

‘I would never engage in conversations with individuals who are ignorant however, I do feel its imperative to highlight individual’s ideology especially when it is so far right.’

He told the tribunal that before posting his response he’d looked at other posts on this recruiter’s page, which included ‘inflammatory communications regarding Muslims and Islam’.

One post was by actor and right-wing activist Laurence Fox, and read ‘Enough of this madness now, We need to permanently remove Islam from Great Britian. Completely and entirely’.

The recruitment consultant sent an email to the CEO of the company Mr Al-Abasi worked for, advising them that he would be ‘seeking advice’ about Mr Al-Abasi’s post.

He told them he was ‘livid’ and that he wasn’t ‘far-right’.

In a subsequent meeting with the Managing Director of Community Resourcing, Mark Stratton, Mr Al-Abasi said he wasn’t willing to take his post down when he was asked to do so.

He had been told that there would be ‘consequences’ if he didn’t take it down.

The company’s social media policy said that employees must make it clear they are not speaking for the company, and they shouldn’t post anything which could damage the business or its reputation.

Mr Al-Abasi agreed to take Eden Brown’s name off his LinkedIn posts and remove the ‘far right’ reference.

He was then told that failing to remove his post would be considered gross misconduct.

Mr Al-Abasi offered to add a disclaimer at the top of the post saying that his comments didn’t represent the views of his employer, which the tribunal considered a ‘reasonable solution’.

Mr Stratton accepted this, and that was considered to be the end of the matter.

In the same month, the recruitment consultant who wrote the offending post said that he would not be escalating his complaint any further.

The tribunal heard that Mr Al-Abasi felt ‘he was being silenced as a Muslim and as a human’.

Employment Judge Richard Nicolle said: ‘Whilst we can envisage circumstances where views expressed on Linkedin may go beyond those which an employee could reasonably expect his employer to tolerate we do not consider that [Mr Al-Abasi] had overstepped that mark.’

The judge added: ‘We find that being asked to remove the post or face consequences created an intimidating and hostile environment.

‘Whilst we acknowledge that this was a single incident, we nevertheless consider that [Mr Al-Abasi] took subjective offence and had objective grounds for doing so.’

EJ Nicolle said that this finding was reached ‘in the particular context of the febrile atmosphere which existed in the days after the Southport murders’.

The amount he will be compensated for injury to feelings will be decided at a later date.

Other claims he made were not successful.