Tower Hamlets Council in London has paid £3,500 in compensation to an 8-year-old boy after teachers reported him to social services because they wrongly believed he was an ISIS supporter.
The alarm was raised when the boy turned up to class wearing a T-shirt with the slogan: “I want to be like Abu Bakr al-Siddique,” the successor to the Prophet Muhammad (saw).
But due to their ignorance of Islamic history, teachers thought the T-shirt expressed support for ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The boy and the school cannot be named because of a confidentiality agreement tied to the settlement, but after he was reported to social services by staff he was questioned by social workers in a formal interview.
According to The Sun, his mum said she had been warned social services had recorded a caution against the child and claimed they had talked about deradicalisation.
The boy, now 11, is said to have been upset by the incident and is now reluctant to speak up at school.
The payout was made by Tower Hamlets council in East London for a breach of the 1988 Human Rights Act. The borough said it was confidential and declined to comment.
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