A female Muslim teaching assistant in Britain who refused to remove her veil in the classroom has won an employment tribunal case for victimisation, a council said on Thursday.
Aishah Azmi, 24, found herself at the centre of a political row which drew in Prime Minister Tony Blair after being suspended from a junior school in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, northern England.
She used a statement after the ruling to say that the intervention of politicians such as Blair in her case made her "fearful" for Muslim women who want to work.
Kirklees Council, in charge of the school area, said Azmi had been awarded 1,000 pounds (1500 euros, 1900 dollars) for injured feelings but had lost other claims of discrimination and harassment.
In a statement issued after the ruling, Azmi said: "Muslim women who wear the veil are not aliens and politicians need to recognise that what they say can have a very dangerous impact on the lives of the minorities they treat as outcasts.
"Integration requires people like me to be in the workplace so that people can see that we are not to be feared or mistrusted.
"Sadly, the intervention of ministers in my case ... makes me fearful of the consequences for Muslim women in this country who want to work."
On Tuesday, Blair said that veils were a "mark of separation", backed the Dewsbury local authority over the case and called for a wider debate on integration.
Two weeks ago, cabinet minister Jack Straw, a former foreign secretary, said he asked Muslim women who visited his constituency office to remove their veils.
Azmi said that she would consider appealing against the tribunal's decision to dismiss some of her claims.
The council had argued that face-to-face communication was essential for Azmi's job as a bilingual support worker. She was suspended from work in February last year.