August 22, 2003	Friday	Jumadi-us-Sani 23, 1424

KARLSRUHE, Aug 21: Germany’s highest court ruled on Thursday that a Muslim shop assistant was wrongly sacked by her employers for wanting to wear a headscarf at work.

The constitutional court in the western city of Karlsruhe declined to hear the department store’s appeal against an Oct 2000 ruling by the federal employment tribunal, which said that wearing a headscarf was part of the woman’s right to religious freedom.

The 30-year-old was fired when, nearing the end of her maternity leave, she announced she wanted to wear a headscarf for religious reasons.

Her employers, the only department store in the small town of Schluechtern, western Germany, said it breached their dress code and might be off-putting for their “rural conservative customers.”—AFP