Muslim who refused handshake in job interview wins discrimination case in Sweden

Farah Alhajeh, 24, refused to shake the hand of a male interviewer, citing her Muslim faith, and says she was then frogmarched out of the company's office in Uppsala. Photo / Farah Alhajeh

A Muslim woman has won a discrimination case in Sweden after she was rejected during a job interview for refusing to shake the hand of the interviewer.

Farah Alhajeh, 24, had been invited to interview for a job as an interpreter in Uppsala, north of Stockholm in May, 2016.

Upon arrival she told the male interviewer that she did not want to shake his hand, citing religious rules of her faith, according to the Daily Mail.

Instead, she greeted him by placing a hand over her heart, as is common among Muslims of similar persuasion.

Some of Alhajeh's faith avoid physical contact with the opposite sex, bar those in their immediate family.

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She told the Swedish Labour Court that the interviewer, an executive at the company, had become red in the face and told her: "Here, everyone must shake hands".

Alhajeh claims she was then frogmarched out of the office and told the interview was over.

"As soon as I got into the lift I started crying," she told SVT. "It had never happened to me before - it didn't feel good at all. It was awful".

She told the broadcaster she had then decided to report the company to Sweden's Discrimination Ombudsman, who took her case to court.

"Of course it's reasonable for an employer to ask employees to treat all colleagues the same, but you have to be able to greet people in different ways," a Discrimination Ombudsman spokesperson told SVT.

This week, the Labour Court ruled in her favour, and ordered the company to pay Alhajeh 40,000 SEK ($6609) in compensation.

"I believe in God, which is very rare in Sweden... and I should be able to do that and be accepted as long as I'm not hurting anyone,' she told the BBC.

"In my country... you cannot treat women and men differently. I respect that. That's why I don't have any physical contact with men or with women.

"I can live by the rules of my religion and also at the same time follow the rules of the country that I live in."