Pro-Palestinian Heathrow worker loses employment tribunal case over flag badge
Zara Saiyed accused the airport of being 'complicit in the killing of Palestinian babies'
A Heathrow security officer who was told to remove a Palestinian flag badge from her uniform has lost a employment tribunal hearing relating to the incident, in which she argued that being asked to take off the badge was equivalent to being directed to remove her hijab.
As reported by The Telegraph, Zara Saiyed was approached by a colleague the badge, which was attached to her staff lanyard, in November 2023, a month after the 7 October attacks by Hamas which precipitated the latest Gaza war. Saiyed, subsequently lodged a formal grievance the following day.
The Telegraph reported that multiple grievance complaints were subsequently filed by Saiyed, with the former Unite the Union representative claiming that “demanding the removal of the Palestinian flag from my lanyard is tantamount to finding my hijab offensive and insisting on its removal”, and accusing the UK’s largest airport of being “complicit in the killing of Palestinian babies”.
Last month an employment tribunal ruled unanimously to dismiss Saiyed’s complaint, saying that “the claimant is a very capable, intelligent individual, but someone whose evidence was not always credible and reliable… the claimant is capable of saying something and believing it is true, and yet is shown to be wrong when you look at the contemporaneous documents.”
All of Saiyed’s claims of direct race discrimination, direct religious discrimination, harassment and victimisation were dismissed.
In comments made on social media before the judgement was made, Saiyed, who is now understood to be studying law at Kingston University said that “through all this, I’ve been reminding myself that whatever the outcome is, I’m pleased knowing I didn’t stay silent. I didn’t let my voice for Palestine or for basic humanity, be suppressed.
“And above everything, I did it for the sake of Allah. That alone gives me comfort. That alone makes it worth it.”
In 2024, Heathrow airport confirmed that while in some context staff were able to wear specific badges showing a country’s flag in order to signal to passengers that the individual was fluent in that country’s language, the Palestinian flag was not included in any such context as a permitted badge. The airport’s service director said that “non-approved badges do not form part of our standards/policy and that we take proactive and (if required) remedial action to ensure that colleagues are aware of this and comply with our standards/policy.”
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