A Christian has questioned the ethics of a political party in Watford after he received a greetings card celebrating a Muslim holiday.
Javid Suleman, 37, received the card to mark Eid, the holiday to mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, from Liberal Democrat prospective parliamentary candidate Sal Brinton.
However, he has taken exception to the possibility the party “categorised” him as a Muslim by his surname after receiving the card on Tuesday, September 22.
He said: “A long time ago I was a Muslim but I converted to Christianity. Somehow they categorised me as a Muslim and the question is how and why. I personally think that's ethically wrong.
“You have to abide by certain processes and categorising people by their ethnicity, colour or religion is the wrong thing to do.
“I asked my neighbours if they got it and of course, they didn't. They're not of Asian decent so they definitely didn't get this.”
Mr Suleman, a systems analyst from Premier Place, Watford, added: “I'm so dubious about my data at the moment. It's really scary.
“I would want my name off their list. I've got nothing against the Liberal Democrats themselves. This doesn't mean I won't vote for them because that depends on their policies and what they will do for Watford. But this doesn't do them any favours.”
Susan Gaszczak, a Watford Liberal Democrats representative, said: “We send out Eid cards on a yearly basis, as we do Christmas cards.
“The data we use is based on the electoral roll and MOSAIC data, which is a 'best guess'. This is the type of data used by direct marketing firms.
“We then go through every name manually and remove the ones that we know not to be Muslim. Inevitably there are some that do go out to non-Muslims but when they contact us we then correct our data.”
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