A Christian worker in the UK who was fired when she accused a group of fundamentalist Muslims of conducting a campaign of “race hate” is set to take her case to court.

Nohad Halawi, who worked at Heathrow Airport, is claiming that she was unfairly dismissed and that she and other Christian staff at the airport were victims of systematic harassment because of their religion, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

Ms Halawi says she was told that she would go to Hell for her religion, and that Jews were responsible for the September 11th terror attacks. She says that a friend was reduced to tears having been bullied for wearing a cross.

Mrs Halawi, who came to Britain from Lebanon in 1977, worked in the duty-free section as a perfume saleswoman of the airport for 13 years but was dismissed in July.

Her case is being supported by the Christian Legal Centre, which says it raises important legal issues and questions concerning whether Muslims and Christians are treated differently by employers.

The case comes amid growing concern among some Christians that their faith is being marginalised and follows calls from Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, for Christians to be given greater legal protection in the wake of a series of cases where they have been disciplined or dismissed for practising their faith.

Mrs Halawi’s case centres on whether she was treated unfairly when she lost her job in World Duty Free in Terminal 3 after she spoke out over what she described as bullying and intimidation by her Muslim colleagues of her and other Christians.

She said that she was the subject of a complaint by an Islamic colleague which was specious and that when she raised her own concerns as a Christian, she was the one who was dismissed.

Now she is distraught at losing her job on allegations made by what she describes as a small group of “extremist” Muslims.

Mrs Halawi, 47, said: “I have been sacked on the basis of unsubstantiated complaints so there is now great fear amongst my former colleagues that the same could happen to them if one of the Muslims turns on them.

“This is supposed to be a Christian country, but the law seems to be on the side of the Muslims.”

A mother of two, she says that she had always got on well with her Muslim colleagues and relations between staff of different faiths had been good in the past, but that the atmosphere became increasingly uncomfortable with a growing number of employees espousing “fundamentalist Islam”.

She says they harassed Christians at work by ridiculing Jesus, making fun of them for wearing crosses, and telling them they would go to Hell if they did not convert to Islam.

“One man brought in the Koran to work and insisted I read it and another brought in Islamic leaflets and handed them out to other employees,” she said.

“They said that 9/11 served the Americans right and that they hated the West, but that they had come here because they want to convert people to Islam.”

Mrs Halawi says she was targeted by the fundamentalists after she stood up for her friend, who is 62 and who she is keeping anonymous because she still works at the terminal.

In May, five of her Muslim colleagues complained to David Tunnicliffe, the trading manager at World Duty Free, accusing her of being anti-Islamic following a heated conversation in the store.

The row had stemmed from her description of a Muslim colleague as an allawhi, which means ‘man of God’ in Arabic. Another Muslim overheard this and thought she said Alawi, which was his branch of Islam.

Following the complaints she was suspended immediately, but was not told the grounds for her suspension until she met Mr Tunnicliffe in July.

Two days after the meeting she received a letter, which said the “store approval” – the Heathrow security pass – needed to work at World Duty Free was being removed because her behaviour was deemed to be unacceptable.

She was paid on a freelance basis by Caroline South Associates, a fragrance and cosmetics agency that provides staff to work in World Duty Free, and was told that she would not be able to continue working without her pass.

A petition signed by 28 colleagues, some of them Muslims, argued that she has been dismissed on the basis of “malicious lies”, but failed to see her reinstated.

Andrea Minichiello Williams, founder and director of the Christian Legal Centre, said that the case is one of the most serious it has handled.

She said there were “real issues of religious discrimination, which it would appear those in authority are turning a blind eye to, using the current loop-holes in employment law as an excuse”.