An Australian Muslim faces the sack for taking 10 minutes off work to pray.

The Australian Industrial Relations Commission said on Thursday it had received a complaint from Lebanese Australian Kamal El-Masri against his Internet industry employers over a threat to fire him if he continued to pray during work hours.

Unions and Islamic community representatives said they were astonished by the Sydney firm's attitude to El-Masri's religious beliefs, under which he must pray to Allah five times a day -- two of those times falling within normal work hours.

"We are extremely disappointed that the company would begrudge an employee 10 minutes to connect with God," said Keysar Trad, spokesman for the Lebanese Muslim Association in Sydney.

"(Workers take time off to)smoke cigarettes or have a chat with each other or take the required 10 minute break to have a stretch every hour after working on a computer."

The Industrial Relations Commission decided on Thursday to give Internet service providers Total Peripheral Group (TPG), and the Australian Services Union, representing El-Masri, until October 14 to negotiate before it arbitrates, a spokesman said.

No one was immediately available to comment at the company, a receptionist said.

In comments published by Sydney tabloid The Daily Telegraph, TPG general manager Julie Jules said: "I'm the last person to be a racialist.

"I just can't have people taking breaks whenever they want. We run a business here."

Australian Muslims were reluctant to connect the case to rising anti-Muslim sentiment since last year's September 11 attacks on New York and Washington by Islamic militants.

The union movement said El-Masri had offered to make up the time lost by working an extra 10 minutes at the end of the day.
"This appears a case of outright religious discrimination," New South Wales Labor Council secretary John Robertson said in a statement. "We hear a lot about employers demanding flexibility but it works both ways."


-- Reuters