Asda managers told Asian staff to show passports
The Asda supermarket group is being threatened with legal action for alleged racial discrimination after insisting that Muslim employees produce their passports to prove they had the right to work in Britain.
At one of the company's main depots, a manager read out "foreign-sounding" names over the public address system ordering them to report immediately to the manager's office. The workers, who were all Muslims, were ordered to produce evidence that they were not illegal immigrants. At least one was threatened with the sack unless he produced his passport the next day.
The highly public initiative by management, which came within weeks of the July 7 bombings in London, was followed by a spate of graffiti at the depot in Wakefield expressing hatred and contempt for Muslims and their religion.
Bob Pitt