Friday, March 16, 2018

Hijab Removal by New York Police Prompts Lawsuit


By Al Baker

One evening in January 2017, after she had been detained for hours in a police holding cell in Manhattan, repeatedly told to remove a head scarf that is part of her Muslim faith and begun to cry, Jamilla Clark relented: She let a New York City police officer photograph her without her hijab.

As the camera flashed, Ms. Clark, 39, felt as if she were naked, she later said. Several male officers then stared at the image of her uncovered head as they stored it in a police database.

In August, Arwa Aziz, 45, endured a similar experience at a police building in Brooklyn. Police officers made her pull down her hijab for an official arrest photo as she stood in a cramped hallway with dozens of male prisoners. The police snapped photos of her uncovered head and hair from several angles. The prisoners, who saw Ms. Aziz weeping, turned away in respect as the officers looked on.

“It’s the law,” one of the officers told her.

Click here for the full article. 

Source: The New York Times 

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