The head of the Islamic Medical Association has been suspended from medical practice for 12 months after sending an “offensive and homophobic” letter to a magazine for GPs.
Dr Muhammad Siddiq wrote that gay people needed the “stick of law to put them on the right path” and were “the root cause of many sexually-transmitted diseases” in a letter to Pulse magazine last July, the General Medical Council heard.
The fitness to practise hearing was told that when Dr Siddiq was confronted about the letter by Walsall Primary Care Trust he said he had written it due to intense stress and apologised unreservedly for its contents. But, days later, he lied and said his son had written it as a “spoof” and he had mistakenly signed it and sent it to Pulse without reading it.
Dr Siddiq then told a Pulse journalist he thought gay people “prey on society” and that he thought 99 per cent of Muslim GPs shared his views.
The panel, sitting in Manchester, also heard Dr Siddiq refused to accept the findings of an assessment in April last year into his ability to perform minor surgery and had continued to perform circumcisions at the Luqman Medical Centre, in Walsall, despite being advised not to.
Mr Andrew Popat, chairing the GMC hearing, said: “Dr Siddiq’s actions were found to be inappropriate, not in the best interests of his patients and, in relation to the letter to Pulse, liable to undermine public confidence.”
