Non-Muslim mom claims daughter was not fed lunch she brought to daycare because it was not halal

Non-Muslim mom claims daughter was not fed lunch she brought to daycare because it was not halal

It is hard to say what is more offensive about a story out of London involving abuse at a daycare facility. Is it the fanatical imposition of the owners’ religious beliefs on children not of their faith, which is Islam? Or is it the ridiculously biased coverage by a left-leaning newspaper, the London Evening Standard?

To judge from the headline, “Police probe claims nursery received racist abuse and online threats in row over child’s non-halal chicken sandwich,” you’d think the daycare facility was the victim — not a 5-year-old who was denied the lunch she brought.

Here are the basic outlines of what went down: Yasmin Jackson, 24, decided to send her daughter Amari to Kingswood Day Care Nursery in Mitcham, south London. On the first day of school, Jackson packed a lunch for the child consisting of chicken salad, bread sticks, humus, chocolate, and fruit.

When she picked her daughter up at the end of the day, the child’s first words to her, she submits, were “Mummy, I’m really hungry, can I have my lunch now?”

Jackson spoke with the manager, Afsheen Siddik, about why her daughter was not allowed to eat the lunch she brought and says she was told the staff wasn’t sure the food was “healthy.” She claims Siddik told her, “There was a sandwich in there and we didn’t know what it was. We didn’t know if it was halal.”

Jackson told reporters:

I said we are a Christian family and it was a chicken sandwich. And she said we don’t allow any non-halal meat in the nursery. So I thought this is just ridiculous.

According to the Standard, Siddik “categorically denied the claims,” adding that the nursery offered Amari plain spaghetti, which she rejected. But why would there be a need to offer her an alternative lunch unless the staff denied Amari access to eat the food she brought, as Jackson maintains?

Siddik’s version of events makes no sense on its face, yet the Standard’s high dudgeon is not over a story of religious bullying but rather the perceived persecution of Islam by “far-right” fanatics. The story opens:

Police were today investigating far-right threats to a nursery school…. [Emphasis added]

It continues in the same vein in paragraph four:

But when Ms Jackson wrote about it on Facebook, her post was picked up by far-right activists and went viral on the internet.

The nursery then found itself swamped with racial and religious abuse. [Emphasis added]

A version of the story at the Mail Online notes that Jackson’s “Muslim friends are also angry about the incident.” Could it be that the Standard’s presumption that those opposing this Draconian policy are conservative is colored by its own liberal bias?

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Howard Portnoy

Howard Portnoy

Howard Portnoy has written for The Blaze, HotAir, NewsBusters, Weasel Zippers, Conservative Firing Line, RedCounty, and New York’s Daily News. He has one published novel, Hot Rain, (G. P. Putnam’s Sons), and has been a guest on Radio Vice Online with Jim Vicevich, The Alana Burke Show, Smart Life with Dr. Gina, and The George Espenlaub Show.

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