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Sif
Keeper of the Sacred Lunch-Box
Joined: Jul 13, 2004
Posts: 105
Location: Somewhere in the beyond
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 Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 1:02 pm Post subject: Legal Recognition for Pagan Religion in UK |
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My
fella recieved this today...maybe of special interest to any fellow
heathens out there but has great significance for all pagans too
| Quote: | From: Robin Jackson
(Information Officer,
Odinist Fellowship)
Dear Colleague,
You will be interested in this ground-breaking judicial decision,
giving legal recognition to the Odinist religion in English law, as
more fully detailed in the attached Round Robin. For the first time
ever, a judicial declaration has stipulated that a pagan religion,
namely Odinism, is to be accorded recognition, as a religion, for legal
purposes. The legal precedent, established by this case, will help to
protect the rights, not only of Odinists, but of all pagans, in the
workplace. The Odinist Fellowship is proud of having achieved this
breakthrough for the wider pagan community.
Thanks be to the gods and goddesses!
7 April 2006
Round Robin 2006 / 2 - WE’VE WON!
Dear Fellow Odinists,
Today I have received some good news, which I have been waiting for
with anticipation. I have held up this issue of this Round Robin, so as
to make the announcement without delay. It concerns the tribunal case
of an Odinist, sacked by his employer for expressing his religious
faith in the workplace. The case has enormous implications for all
pagans, especially as a legal judgment had to be reached as to whether
Odinism, and by implication other pagan religions, should be accorded
recognition under anti-discrimination legislation. We are delighted,
therefore, to be able to declare the result, which our barrister summed
up so succinctly and simply with the words, “We’ve won!”
The case of Royal Mail Group PLC versus Donald Holden, which was heard
in the Manchester Industrial Tribunal on 9 and 10 March, pitted a
large, wealthy corporation, with a multi-million pound turnover,
against a sole individual, Donald Holden, whose only resources were his
honest integrity and his dogged determination to stand up for his
rights. Donald is a member of the Odinist Fellowship, and we were able
to put him in touch with a first-class barrister, Adrian Davies, an
observer member of the Fellowship, who, I have to say, made mincemeat
of the Royal Mail’s witnesses in court. I, myself, was present on both
days of the two-day hearing, and presented evidence as a witness on
Donald’s behalf.
Whilst listening to the tribunal proceedings, I could not help
thinking of Franz Kafka’s disturbing, German-language novel, “The
Trial”, in which the hero gets embroiled in a surreal nightmare of
paranoia-inducing, legal proceedings and insane bureaucracy. But by
comparison with Kafka’s narrative, it is the Holden case, which reads
like far-fetched, surrealist fiction. Yet, sadly, the sorry society, in
which we live, produces such travesties week in, week out.
What are the facts of this case? Many of you will be surprised, as
I was, to learn that, increasingly, employers with a large proportion
of Muslim staff are being obliged to set aside rooms in the workplace
for Muslim prayers, and to allow their employees to take time away from
their duties to engage in these prayers. At the Mail Centre where
Donald worked, there was just such a room, which was designated as a
“Multicultural Room”. That is important, because never, at any time,
did the Royal Mail claim that the Room was solely for Muslim use, or
that non-Muslims might not use it for their own purposes.
And the simple point, that Donald was evidently trying to make is
that he too, as an Odinist, and as a non-Muslim, had the right of
access to the facilities, which, in theory, the management had set
aside for all staff, but which, in practice, were being used as an
exclusive Muslim Club Room. Donald had the audacity to enter the Room,
as if he had an equal right to it as any other employee, in order to
spend a few moments in silent prayer; and just as the Muslim employees
used the Room to store their Korans and prayer calendars, Donald,
himself, presumed to have the right to leave his sheets of paper,
containing the text of our introductory booklet, “All About Odinism”,
downloaded from the internet, and some images of Odin, in the Room, on
a couple of plastic chairs placed next to a sink.
One item of evidence, which I have seen, is a book used to sign in
and out for the key to this Multicultural Room. Donald’s visits to the
Room were always of short duration, and mainly took place on a
Saturday, when the Mail Centre was almost empty, and when his security
duties obliged him to patrol the building to check all was in order. I
was able to see for myself, that certain names and signatures,
evidently belonging to Muslim employees, recurred time and time again
in the signing-in book, sometimes three or four times in a single
shift, and that the duration of their stay was often half an hour, or
more. Some would call this “skiving”. It is true that pious Muslims are
obliged to pray five times a day, and those times are usually
considered to be dawn, morning, noon, evening and nightfall. So it
seems remarkable that some of the Muslim employees were trying to fit
them all into one shift. But the Royal Mail’s managers weren’t
interested in that! They were more interested in what Donald was
getting up to in the Muslim Club Room – sorry, Multicultural Room!
The man was obviously threatening the cosy arrangement between
management, unions and Muslim leaders, that prevailed at the Mail
Centre – and so he had to be stopped! An anonymous complaint was made –
this goes back to October 2004 – to the effect that a muddy footprint
had been left on the carpet of the Multicultural Room. What could this
mean? There could only be one possible interpretation: quite clearly,
the culprit had intended it as an attack on the Muslim religion. And
not only was it, self-evidently, an anti-Muslim footprint, but on
closer examination it became obvious that it must have been made by an
anti-Islamic boot; and, no doubt, that anti-Islamic boot had been
wielded by an Islamophobic foot. And who else could that Islamophobic
foot belong to? The principal suspect had to be Donald Holden, of
course!
What could any reasonable manager do in such circumstances?
Obviously, there was only one solution: set up covert spy cameras in
the Multicultural Room to trap the culprit, as he goes about creating
criminal damage! So, for five months, from October 2004 to February
2005, the managers video-recorded Donald to see if he was causing
deliberate damage in the Room. Surprise, surprise! – the outcome of
this five-month surveillance operation – which, no doubt, cost
thousands of pounds to undertake – was that not a single piece of
evidence was uncovered, implicating Donald in damage of any sort. Nor,
indeed, were any more muddy footprints discovered.
One of the curious features of the Holden case is that no one has ever
managed to discover who actually muddied the carpet! Indeed, as the
hearing progressed, it became increasingly doubtful whether anyone had
actually seen any muddy footprint on the carpet, in the first place.
None of the Royal Mail’s managers, neither the investigating officer,
nor Donald’s line manager, nor the external appeals officer, admitted
to having actually seen any footprint at all. And the only evidence,
offered in support of its existence, was two anonymised statements,
purportedly made by Muslim members of staff. But since these two
statements were anonymous, and since those responsible for making them
did not appear in court, and could not therefore be cross-examined, I
began to find myself doubting their existence too. Had there ever been
a muddy footprint? Did the affronted Muslims really exist? Was the
footprint really anti-Islamic? Or was it just an imaginary,
anti-Muslim, muddy footprint? The truth may never be known for certain,
but some might be inclined to call it a “set-up”.
Now, of course, Donald was not aware that he was being spied on over a
period of five months, and he was on his own whenever he went into the
Multicultural Room. So, if he had had a mind to tear up a few Korans,
scrawl anti-Muslim slogans on the walls, or leave behind defamatory
cartoons of Mohammed, he could have done so without apparent risk of
detection. But Donald had absolutely no intention of doing anything
against the Islamic religion; he was simply intent on doing something
for the Odinist faith, by staking his claim, as an Odinist, to a share
in the use of that small part of his workplace – to establish his right
of way, so to speak. Far from attempting anything suspicious, he
dutifully signed in and out in the book for the key to the
Multicultural Room, and simply went there to spend a few minutes on his
own, as the video-recordings clearly showed.
So, after five months of achieving nothing, what were the managers
at the Mail Centre supposed to do? They realised that a charge of
criminal damage could never be made to stick. But the matter could not
be allowed to rest there, could it? No, it could not, for the video
evidence gathered proved that Donald had been repeatedly leaving his
religious literature in the Room on some plastic chairs near a sink.
Doubtless, in some societies in the world today, that would be
sufficient grounds for the culprit to be taken out, and summarily
executed. However, as we, in this country, have not yet got around to
introducing summary executions for insulting Islam, Donald was called
in to be interviewed by an investigating officer, – this was on 23
February 2005, – subjected to a gruelling inquisition, and summarily
suspended from work on the grounds of “religiously aggravated
harassment directed against the Muslim faith”. Donald was never to do a
day’s work for the Royal Mail again.
The weakness of the Royal Mail’s case against Donald, which became
only too apparent during the course of the tribunal hearing, especially
when our excellent barrister got the opportunity of grilling – and then
frying and roasting – the Royal Mail’s managers in cross-examination,
is that, at each stage of the disciplinary proceedings against Donald,
the definition of what action was deemed to constitute the “religiously
aggravated harassment” altered. No two managers could exactly agree on
what it was that Donald had done, which deserved to be called
“harassment”, but they all agreed that he was guilty of it,
nonetheless.
The investigating officer, who suspended Donald in February 2005,
took the line that it was the religious literature, left by Donald in
the Room, that was offensive to Muslims. This officer, in his interview
with Donald, derided and belittled Donald’s Odinist faith, trying to
make him admit that he was not a true believer, and then asserting that
Odinism was not a real religion at all. To support this, he had
obtained a written statement from one of the Royal Mail’s legal
officers, stating: “We do not believe that Odinism could ever be
recognised as a religion in a democratic society.” The investigating
officer, who had done some cursory research on the internet, quizzed
Donald about aspects of the religion, and whenever Donald failed to
give a ready answer, then tried to make it appear as if he was
insincere in his religious persuasion. He described the literature
Donald had left in the Room, i.e. the text of our “All About Odinism”
booklet, as “offensive”, and he called the pictures of Odin, also left
there, “disturbing” and “alarming”. When asked what he had been doing
in the Room, Donald answered that he had been praying, though he had
obviously not been kneeling or kow-towing while doing so, but this
explanation was treated with derision. Despite a considerable amount of
pressure put on him to admit that he was not truly an Odinist believer,
or that Odinism is not a genuine religion, or that he was not really
praying, Donald remained utterly steadfast, and refused to give in to
any of these impudent and insulting assertions. The result was that
Donald was summarily suspended from work, on full pay, pending further
disciplinary investigations.
I must also add, that this investigating officer admitted, in
writing, that he was responsible for confiscating Donald’s papers,
including the two images of Allfather Odin – papers, which were, after
all, Donald’s private property – and then destroying them! Why did he
have to do that? I made it clear to the tribunal, in my submissions,
that this spiteful, sacrilegious act would cause a scandal among all
true Odinists.
It was at this time, that Donald first contacted me. I have to admit
that, initially, I could hardly believe that I was hearing the whole
story, and so I insisted on ascertaining the facts, and seeing the
supporting documentation, myself. In all the two dozen years, in which
I have worked for the Odinist movement, I had never encountered a
genuine case of religious discrimination in the workplace. So I was
astonished to do so now. At Donald’s request, I wrote, in my capacity
as Director of the Odinist Fellowship, to the Chairman of the Royal
Mail Group, Mr Alan Leighton, pointing out to him that he must be
aware, even if some of his subordinates were not, that it is illegal to
discriminate on grounds of religion in matters of employment, and has
been ever since the introduction of the Employment Equality (Religion
or Belief) Regulations 2003. I asked him to reconsider his managers’
ill-advised decision, so as to prevent the matter from coming to court.
However, the case was then passed on, from the investigating
officer, to Donald’s own line manager. Perhaps because of my letter to
Mr Leighton, – who knows? – Donald’s manager professed himself to be
unconcerned by the content of the literature left in the Room. He had
looked at the investigation afresh, and it was not the Odinist
literature or images that disturbed him, and which he deemed to
constitute “religiously aggravated harassment”. No, it was the fact, of
which there was undoubted video evidence, that Donald had walked on the
carpet! – and that he had done so without taking his shoes off! –
although his shoes must have been clean, since he had not left any
muddy footprints! Walking on the carpet in the Multicultural Room,
while wearing shoes, was against the rules. More seriously, it
definitely – and without the shadow of a doubt – constituted
“religiously aggravated harassment”. What is more, since this action
had been repeated time after time, Donald Holden was clearly a serial
carpet-walker, and totally unfit to remain in the Royal Mail’s employ.
“Religiously aggravated harassment” is a criminal offence, and the
manager had seriously considered reporting the matter to the police. He
had no choice, therefore, but to decide on a summary dismissal. A man,
who had had nearly thirty-three years’ unblemished service in the Royal
Mail, was to lose his livelihood and his pension rights – and all
because he walked on the carpet! Welcome to the joys of diversity in
Multicultural Britain!
Donald appealed against his dismissal. The external appeals officer
confirmed the decision to dismiss, but the grounds of dismissal this
time were not because of the supposedly offensive action of leaving
religious literature in the Multicultural Room, nor because of the
harassment implicit in walking on the carpet, but because – oh, it gets
funnier by the minute – because he moved the plastic chairs! The
appeals officer stated, that she might not have taken such a dim view
of Donald Holden’s transgression, if it had not been for the fact that
the video evidence showed him unstacking the two plastic chairs at the
rear of the room, and placing one of them near the sink, where the
Muslims used to wash before prayers. The video film showed, that he did
this repeatedly on many of the occasions, when he entered the
Multicultural Room. Indeed, Donald admitted having done so, and that he
had placed his images on the chair, so as to have a better view of
them. The appeals officer therefore, naturally, concluded that it was a
case of harassment. Moreover, it was repeated and deliberate
harassment, and therefore “religiously aggravated harassment”. As such,
it was just about the most serious crime in the book. The decision to
dismiss was confirmed.
Fortunately, not everyone in the world has gone stark, raving mad.
The three Panel Members of the Manchester Industrial Tribunal, after
hearing all the evidence in the case, formed the judgment that Donald
Holden had been unfairly dismissed, and, although they cannot order his
reinstatement, they can order the Royal Mail to pay a substantial
package of compensation. The pay-out is likely to run to six figures.
And rightly so! He has lost his job, his overtime opportunities, and
his retirement prospects. And I know, that the stress of a long-drawn
out case has taken its toll on him and on his family. Fortunately,
Donald has found alternative employment. And perhaps it will turn out
to be a blessing in disguise, as his conditions of work, alongside such
managers, could hardly have been congenial. I am sure all our members
will join me in wishing him and his family all the very best for the
future – and likewise in expressing our appreciation to his dedicated
legal team!
Let us not forget, however, that thanks are also due elsewhere. We
have prayed to the gods, especially to Forseti, the god who presides
over cases of law to ensure justice is achieved. And we have asked
others to join with our prayers, and I am assured that they have done
so too. Three weeks ago, during a rally of Northern members, held on
the occasion of the Odinist Easter at Grindleford, in Derbyshire, we
offered a sacrifice for this particular intention. The sacrifice of the
Cup of Remembrance is magically most effective. The gods heard our
pleas, and worked through us to bring victory in a just cause. Odinism
has been vindicated! Thanks and praise be to Forseti, and to all the
gods and goddesses!
One noteworthy feature of this story is that the anti-pagan persecution
was not being directed by Donald’s Muslim colleagues, with whom he had
no real problem at all, but by a clique of managers, all of them white
British, who are dogmatically committed to pursuing their own perverse
programme of “multicultural diversity”. These managers were absolutely
and unswervingly convinced that a trivial action, like placing a
plastic chair by a sink, could be viewed as nothing other than a
premeditated insult to Islam. Yet the same managers admitted, in the
tribunal, that their knowledge of the Muslim faith was limited in the
extreme. In a previous age, such hypocritical paragons of political
correctitude, would have made exemplary Puritan witch-finders, or
agents of the Holy Inquisition, ferretting out heretics who had eaten
meat in Lent, or crossed themselves the wrong way round, and casting
them on to the burning pyre. The self-styled “politically correct”,
with their multi-faith agenda, are truly the witch-finders general of
the modern age.
Let me conclude by quoting the reserved judgment of the tribunal
concerning the recognition of Odinism as a religion. The tribunal had
to decide whether Odinism satisfies the definition of a religion or
belief in terms of the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief)
Regulations 2003. This is the first time ever that this question has
been considered in court, and the tribunal’s judgment establishes a
precedent, which can be referred to in any future law case in which an
Odinist – or, by implication, any other pagan – claims unfair dismissal
on religious grounds or religious discrimination in matters of
employment. The reader will, particularly, want to note the identifying
characteristics that the tribunal panel were looking for, in trying to
ascertain, on an objective basis, whether or not Odinism should be
recognised, for legal purposes, as a religion, as these are the
features that a reasonable person would expect any recognisable
religion to possess. Here is what the tribunal declared:-
“The
first issue for the Tribunal is whether Odinism satisifies the
definition of a religion or belief in regulation 2(1). Mr Davies
contends that it does. Mr Peacock [barrister representing the Royal
Mail] neither admits nor disputes it.”
“The Tribunal finds that Odinism is a religion or belief within
regulation 2(1). The Tribunal has considered the literature about
Odinism in the Bundle of Documents (which appears to be principally a
hard copy of material from the website of the Odinist Fellowship) and
also the evidence given by Mr Harrison, the Director of the Odinist
Fellowship. The Tribunal finds Odinism to be a belief systm based on
the pre-Christian heathen religion of the British Isles. It is
polytheistic and honours the Odinic pantheon of deities with particular
regard being paid to the deity of Odin or Woden. It has a concept of
the secular and the spiritual worlds and the relationship between them.
It has a broad code of ethics based on what are called the Nine Noble
Virtues. It has rituals and ceremonies including the Cup of
Remembrance, Naming, Pledge of Faith, Wedding and Laying to Rest. It
does not have any sacred texts as such but it pays special heed to
works known as the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda which it regards as
sources of information about the heathen religion. The Tribunal is not
required to make any value judgment or assessment of Odinism as a
belief system but to decide whether it satisfies the relatively
exiguous definition in regulation 2(1) and the Tribunal is satisfied
that it does.”
Well, I don’t think you can say fairer than that! Remember the case of
Royal Mail Group PLC v Holden (2006). For all pagans of every kind,
this has established a precedent ensuring your rights in law. Odinism
is now, quite categorically and specifically, covered and protected by
anti-discrimination legislation, in the same way that has been taken
for granted by other religions.
We Odinists have never needed any outside assurance that ours is a
true and genuine religion. That is something we know in our hearts, and
something we are taught by our nation’s history. But many Odinists,
nonetheless, have craved a clear statement by judicial authorities that
our holy religion is and will be recognised in English law. Thank the
gods! Now we have it!
With sincere Odinist greetings!
Ralph Harrison
(Director) |
_________________
May those who love us, love us.
And those who don't love us,
May the Gods turn their hearts;
And if they don't turn their hearts,
May they turn their ankles,
So we will know them by their limping |
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Rebelodicus
Unseen University Student
Joined: Dec 10, 2005
Posts: 70
Location: Deepest Darkest Devon
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| Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 7:37 am Post subject: |
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Fantastic ! 
Another step closer to a world that I might enjoy more 
Reb
_________________
"First in my prayer, before all other deities,
I call upon Gaia, Primeval Prophetess . . .
The Greek great earth mother."
~Aeschylus~
http://thepaganactivist.com |
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