– UK: Christian woman prosecuted for talking about Christianity to a Muslim colleague:
A Christian therapist in England who was suspended after being accused of evangelizing to a Muslim colleague has suffered another loss in court.
Would a Muslim be taken to court for sharing his or her faith with a coworker? Whether or not Victoria Wasteney was proselytizing to her Muslim colleague on the job or not is to be determined in court. However, there remains a larger issue: Western authorities are giving the impression that while Christians are studied under a microscope for accountability, Muslims are not. Some examples:
- University of California Berkeley Muslim professor Hatem Bazian has been openly calling for an intifada in America, and he has issued these violent calls at several venues throughout the United States.
- Nadia Shoufani, a Toronto-area school teacher who called a Palestinian jihadist who crushed the skull of a four-year-old Israeli girl a hero and martyr, was said to have been investigated by her school board and by Toronto Police. But there has been no followup.
- Farrah Marfatia, a principal of a Muslim academy in Mississauga, near Toronto, Canada was instructing parents to teach their children that “homosexuals are cursed by Allah as are the men who imitate or dress up like women.” Once again, there was no followup.
One can imagine the public outcry if Christians or Jews were preaching those same words — the court battles, the disdain. But where is the same reaction when Muslims say this? Instead, we see Victoria Wasteney, a Christian woman, in court for imparting messages about her faith’s love and healing to a Muslim colleague with whom she developed a relationship (or so she thought). While there are rules against proselytizing in places of employment, Wasteney was discussing her faith to a colleague, not to a client.
While Ms. Wasteney is being prosecuted in London, Sharia courts in Britain are sending Muslim women back to abusive husbands.
“Christian Hospital Worker Punished for Sharing Faith Loses Again in Court”, by Samuel Smith, Christian Post, July 29, 2017:
A Christian therapist in England who was suspended after being accused of evangelizing to a Muslim colleague has suffered another loss in court.
Victoria Wasteney, the former head of Forensic Occupational Therapy at a hospital in London, was issued a nine-month suspension by East London National Health Service in 2014 after an eight-page complaint was filed against her by a Muslim colleague named Enya Nawaz.
As has been reported, Nawaz and Wasteney, a born-again Christian, developed a relationship while working at the St. John Howard Centre in East London and at points discussed religious differences.
Nawaz’s complaint accused Wasteney of trying to convert her to Christianity. Wasteney reportedly offered to pray with Nawaz, gave her a book authored by a Muslim convert to Christianity and invited her to an event organized by her church.
Wasteney was also accused of putting her hand on Nawaz’s knee while in a prayer and asking God to come to Nawaz.
Wasteney was initially thrown off by the allegations because she thought they had developed a good relationship. She told the Daily Mail in 2015 that she only put her hand on Nawaz’s knee to comfort Nawaz when she was dealing with health problems.
“I put my hand on her knee to comfort her and asked if that was okay, and said, ‘Would you like me to pray for you?’” Wasteney told the Daily Mail, “She said yes, so I asked for God to bring peace and healing. She left the office afterwards and said she was okay.”
Wasteney has denied that her act of giving Nawaz the book I Dared to Call Him Father, was an attempt to convert her.
According to The Telegraph, an East London NHS Foundation Trust disciplinary hearing in February 2014 upheld three charges against Wasteney and found five charges to be unsubstantiated. In the hearing, Wasteney was convicted of “gross misconduct.”
In October 2015, Wasteney won the right to appeal the NHS’ action to the Employment Appeal Tribunal on the basis of religious liberty. However, Judge Jennifer Eady ruled against her in April 2016.
“What the court clearly failed to do was to say how, in today’s politically correct world, any Christian can even enter into a conversation with a fellow employee on the subject of religion and not, potentially, later end up in an employment tribunal,” Wasteney was quoted as saying at the time. “If someone sends you friendly text messages, how is one to know that they are offended? I had no idea that I was upsetting her.”
According to the U.K.-based Christian Legal Centre, Wasteney filed for an appeal against Eady’s 2016 decision and appeared in court Thursday. However, a tweet from the advocacy group on Thursday explained that Wasteney’s “permission to appeal has been rejected” and the “legal battle goes on.”….
H/t reader kevin a.
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