A McDonald’s in Massachusetts knowingly served bacon to Muslim family, council alleges – National | Globalnews.ca

Employees at a McDonald’s restaurant in Massachusetts deliberately put bacon on a fish sandwich {that a} Muslim girl had ordered for one in all her youngsters, a civil rights group stated Wednesday.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a discrimination grievance on the girl’s behalf with the Massachusetts Fee Towards Discrimination.

“It’s generally recognized that Islam forbids Muslims from consuming pork,” the grievance says. “McDonald’s workers willfully added bacon to the complainant’s meals in an effort to offend, humiliate, and trigger misery to complainant and her younger youngsters.”

The grievance is step one within the course of for in search of financial damages, stated Barbara Dougan, a CAIR lawyer. She additionally hopes it prompts McDonald’s to higher practice its staff to stop the same incident sooner or later.

“Spiritual discrimination at a spot of public lodging just isn’t solely unlawful, but additionally morally reprehensible,” she stated in an announcement.

An e mail in search of remark was left with McDonald’s company headquarters in Chicago. A message was additionally left with somebody who answered the cellphone at Gomez Enterprises LLC, which operates the McDonald’s restaurant on Meadow Road in Chicopee.

The expertise prompted one the kids to ask his mom if “they hate us.”

“McDonald’s made my youngsters and me really feel undesirable and nugatory by deliberately stuffing a fish sandwich stuffed with bacon for no different motive than to punish us for our religion and spiritual convictions,” the girl, Ghadir Alahmar, stated in an announcement. “This actually harm us. My youngsters now surprise if they’re welcome in their very own nation. They ask me, `Do they hate us?’ How is a mom presupposed to reply that query?”

Alahmar, who wears a hajib and an abaya, entered the shop on June 29 of final 12 months along with her twin 7-year-old sons, the grievance says. She ordered a plain fish sandwich, and had one in all her youngsters repeat the order to a employee in case they didn’t perceive her accent.

They acquired their order, which included fries and cookies, and left the restaurant to stroll to a close-by college playground the place they deliberate to eat. One in all her sons seen the bacon.

The sandwich not solely had bacon on it, however appeared to have further bacon, the grievance says.

They didn’t eat the bacon, however one son ate the decrease half of the bun and a part of the fish filet, in keeping with the grievance.

Alahmar’s husband returned to the shop with the uneaten portion of the sandwich later that very same night and was refunded the acquisition worth.