UK Police Probe Online Abuse of Teacher Over Hijab Ban Decision

Police is carrying out an investigation into the suspected online abuse of a school principal in the United Kingdom who tried to ban the hijab for students. The Indian-origin teacher, Neena Lall, was portrayed as German dictator Adolf Hitler for her decision.

Lall, who is the head teacher of the St Stephens School in Newham, east London, had caused a stir when she decided to impose a ban on hijab for girls below the age of eight years. Lall had to later backtrack from her decision and faced widespread criticism. She was branded as “Hitler” on the social media.

The local police said that they were evaluating a report of malicious communications after hateful and abusive e-mails were received in association with the case, the Sunday Times reported. A complaint has also been lodged with the Newham police about the e-mails, posts on social media like Facebook, and other messages on various media that were received by Lall as well as Arif Qawi, the former chairman of governors.

A video of Lall was circulated on the social media in January, showing her as German dictator Adolf Hitler. The school’s former chairman of governors was portrayed as Russian dictator Stalin, while the members of the management team were shown as Hitler’s followers. This was the clip showing Hitler’s famous rant from the 2004 war film, Downfall, and the subtitles were edited to talk about the hijab ban at the school.

Another poster gave out the personal e-mail address of Qawi, asking people to e-mail him as well as Lall. Some other messages called him an “imbecile” and an Islamophobic.

A local imam, Yunus Dudhwala, shared Qawi’s Facebook post of media reports, urging people to comment on it.

Qawi said that a slew of messages, some of which were abusive, were received over many days, and this forced the school to reverse its decision on the hijab ban. “I resigned because I did not agree with reversing the hijab ban and to protect the head-teacher. She was told that if I left, the campaign would stop,” Qawi said, according to reports.

“No head teacher or governing body should be subject to the sorts of abuse we have heard reported in these recent incidents,” education secretary Damian Hinds said, the publication reported.

Lord Theodore Agnew, Britain’s minister for schools systems, faith and counter-extremism in education, had supported Lall’s decision earlier, saying that bullying or intimidation of school staff is completely unacceptable. “I have seen the vitriolic abuse on social media after this decision and read of the intimidation of staff, resulting in the resignation of the chairman of governors,” he wrote in the Sunday Times.

He added that teachers, school leaders and governors are within their right to make decisions on how to make their schools run in the best interests of their pupils “in line with the law and in discussion with parents, of course, and we back their right to do so.”