Gay Muslim fights bank harassment

OutRage! backs fight for justice

A gay Muslim business manager is bringing a claim of racial victimisation and homophobic harassment against the London division one of the world’s biggest financial institutions, the German conglomerate, Deutsche Bank.

A gay Muslim business manager is bringing a claim of racial victimisation and homophobic harassment against the London division one of the world’s biggest financial institutions, the German conglomerate, Deutsche Bank.

Mr Sid Saeed is filing a 16-page legal claim, which is due to be heard before an employment tribunal.

He is being advised and supported by gay human rights group OutRage!, which is planning a campaign against Deutsche Bank if the case is not satisfactorily resolved.

Mr Saeed, whose parents settled in Britain from Pakistan, was a city high flier. As futures and options business manager, he rose to become vice-president of Deutsche Bank’s global exchange services division, based in the Square Mile.

Mr Saeed claims that in 2001 he began to be subjected to racist and homophobic abuse by senior managers. He alleges they called him a “fucking fag” and “gay boy”, made abusive remarks about “shit stabbers”, and said “not only is Sid a Paki, but he’s a queer.”

Some of these claims have already been verified in a previous investigation and others will be confirmed by witnesses who are scheduled to testify on Mr Saeed’s behalf.

Coinciding with this abuse, his meteoric rise in the company suddenly stalled. With his prestigious career falling part, Mr Saeed had a nervous breakdown, sank into a deep depression, attempted suicide four times and had to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

Deutsche Bank deny the accusations against them and are contesting Mr Saeed’s legal case. It is the first claim against a city firm under the new laws prohibiting homophobic discrimination in the workplace.

“The equal opportunities policy of Deutsche Bank appears to be in effectual and unenforced,” said Brett Lock of OutRage!

“These allegations suggest a culture of corporate indifference to racist and homophobic harassment.

“We hope this legal action will be a warning to other big city firms that tolerating anti-gay and anti-black victimisation in the workplace is illegal and unacceptable in a civilised society.

“It is in Deutsche Bank’s interest to ensure that all its employees feel respected and secure. Racial and sexual orientation harassment undermine staff morale and damage a company’s public reputation, which is bad for business.

“OutRage! is willing to advise Deutsche Bank on ensuring its equal opportunities policy has effective mechanisms for enforcement and redress,” said Mr Lock.

Mr Saeed is being represented by Mark Emery, a specialist in employment law at Bindman and Partners Solicitors.

OutRage! News Service
e-mail: media@outrage.org.uk
Homepage: http://outrage.org.uk

Comments

Hide the following 7 comments

Class-sick

24.02.2005 15:29

From its historical role in facilitaing and profitting from the Nazi regime's persecution of Jewish people, to it's current links with the regime in Burma which exploits the forced labour of thousands of people, Deutsche Bank in its search for profit has never been a respecter of human rights.

It shows the poverty of Outrage's single issue politics and that they can give their support to defending the right of some gays to be exploiters just like rest of the top corporate scum who's greed and hubris blights the live of millions of people of all sexualities, of all religions and ethnicities across the world.

corporate queens are our enemies and oppressors, just like the rest of the mindless money consuming priveliged hetero-trash

Our World is the World of the Many
Our struggle is for queer liberation
not for gay assimilation

anti-capitalist queer

Riiiight....

24.02.2005 22:25

So what you're saying ACQ, is that gay people, black people, Muslims and presumably other minorities who work in the commercial sector don't deserve the same rights as white heterosexuals do.

Interesting way of looking at it.

Maybe Outrage should have taken a more um 'principled' stand and said "sorry mate, if you want to work for a capitalist enterprise, you deserve to be hounded out of your job for being a gay black Muslim. Had it coming, chum... Racist and homophobic treatment is perfectly acceptable unless you work for an organic hemp collective."

I can see now how that position would be far less, er.. "impoverished".

Qwerty

Get real!

25.02.2005 12:27

No, that is not what I said - gay people, black people, Muslims and other minorities who work in the commercial sector do, of course, deserve the same rights as white heterosexuals do.

However there is quite a difference in the role, the powers and the privileges of say a janitor or clerk working for Deutsche Bank compared to that of a business manager like Mr. Saeed. It is the role of managers such as Mr. Saeed to maximise returns for the corporation regardless of the human suffering and environmental damage involved.

Deutsche Bank's current involvement in profitting from human rights abuses from building dams in India to financing the brutal slave labour regime in Burma is well know ( Google it!).
Many of the people who's lives are being fucked over for Deutsche Bank's profits are queer, most are not white and most belong to 'ethnic minority' groups (i.e they are the majority of the world's peoples).

Outrage's silence about the human rights of the majority of people affected by Deutsche Bank, betrays the middle class orientation of the group. Instead they focus their concern on the rights of 'city high flyers'.

The goal of this campaign is to ensure that a privileged minority of gay men (hey and maybe the occasional woman too) get equal oppertunities with the hetero-sexist white western elite to trample on the human rights of the rest of us.

Qwerty can only respond by trying to mock and distort opposing viewpoints, because her view of life, like that of many other relatively privileged people, is based on the denial of the sources of that privilege in the oppression and exploitation of the majority.

Anti-capitalist queer

Queer view

25.02.2005 18:18

Whatever 'Anti-capitalist queer' says, the logical ramification of what s/he is proposing is that some racist and homophobic abuse is tolerable as long as the victim is middle class or works for the "wrong" company. You can't fight racism, sexism and homophobia by making exceptions. It is either right or it is wrong. The white middle-class heterosexual male hegemony of international companies will never be challenged if they're allowed to use sexism, racism and homophobia as weapons to keep out minorities from senior positions.

Of course, to claim that Outrage "focus their concern on the rights of 'city high flyers'" is utter rubbish, since their most high profile campaigns recently have included defending the rights of (predominantly working-class) queer Jamaicans and asylum seekers. To say that the concerns of city high-flyers is their focus is a ridiculous distortion of the truth.

Also ask yourself. Do you think highlighting the issue of a major discrimination scandal enhances or tarnishes the image of Deutsche Bank?

Qwerty

Get real!

25.02.2005 18:28

When anti-capitalist queer says...
"However there is quite a difference in the role, the powers and the privileges of say a janitor or clerk working for Deutsche Bank compared to that of a business manager like Mr. Saeed. It is the role of managers such as Mr. Saeed to maximise returns for the corporation regardless of the human suffering and environmental damage involved."

Are you arguing that we should not protest that the bank is using racism and anti-gay harrasment to get rid of this Mr Saeed to replace him with a white male to do the same job?

Pro-common sense queer

Equal opportunity oppression?

27.02.2005 10:50

"You can't fight racism, sexism and homophobia by making exceptions. It is either right or it is wrong."

I totally agree with the above, which is why I have a problem with this campaign by Outrage. If human rights are universal in their application, then the tens of thousands of other people affected by the activities of Deutsche Bank are also worthy of our solidarity.

I feel some sympathy for the suffering of Mr. Saeed, but perhaps this personal crisis might provide an opportunity for him to re-access his life choices.
I might feel even more sympathy if there was any indication that the occassion for Mr. Saeed's harassment was that he had in any way questioned the policies and values of Deutsche Bank.

And I also feel sympathy for the plight of the many, many more people affected by Deutsche Bank. Yet Outrage and it's supporters here remain silent abut these human rights abuses.

What Deutsche Bank is doing is wrong and what Mr. Saeed was doing as a business manager for Deutsche Bank was also wrong.

I t is at the minimum, a very blinkered and a very selective take on universal human rights to champion the cause of people who are involved in the oppression and exploitation of others whilst ignoring the rights of their victims.

Anti-capitalist queer

Focus

27.02.2005 11:42

The way I understand it, Outrage is a gay rights group. The two issues you are conflating are not related. One is about holding companies accountable for workplace discrimination, and the other is about the activities those companies persue on a global scale. The two issues are not contradictory. There are single-issue groups and their work has to be seen as complementary, not contradictory. For example, PETA might have a lot to say about McDonald's use of intensive animal farming, but I for one wouldn't expect them to campaign around workplace discrimination - because that is not in their mandate. It is unreasonable to expect that any one group can amass the resources and expertise to tackle all issues simultaneiously. It is perfectly reasonable, the way I see it, for one group to tackle Deutsche Bank on their failure to deal with harassment of minorities, while another group tackles them over their impact on the environment, and yet another tackles them over the issues you have raised. It's called "division of labour".

Qwerty