A Muslim has been awarded €4,000 by the Equality Tribunal for discrimination on religious grounds by Western Union Financial Services.
This is the first successful case taken to the tribunal on religious grounds under the Equal Status Act. The case was supported by the authority.
Mohamed Haji Hassan is a Somali who is now a naturalised Irish citizen. In October 2002 he sought to collect £50 which had been sent to him in Dublin from the UK, via Western Union's money transfer service.
At first he was told the money was not there. He was later told it had been withheld by the US Treasury and was in a queue of random transactions being examined. He was asked to forward a copy of his passport, which would then be sent to the Treasury and the FBI.
Mr Hassan complained of discrimination in December 2002, and the company explained why the money was withheld. It said this arose from a legal requirement to screen all money transactions against lists of names of persons and organisations identified as being associated with terrorism, narcotics trafficking and other illegal activity. This list was supplied by the US Treasury's office of foreign assets control, the EU and other government and law enforcement agencies.
Western Union said that when the sender or recipient of a money transfer has a name identical or similar to one of the names on one of these lists, the company suspends the transaction and investigates. Mr Hassan's name was deemed to resemble one of those on the list.
The tribunal's equality officer found that Western Union acted in compliance with EU regulations relating to anti-terrorist measures in freezing the money, and that the Equal Status Act exempts any action taken on foot of any order arising out of EU law. Therefore she found there was no direct discrimination.