CAIR: Mo. Jailers Forcibly Remove Muslim Woman's Hijab

Muslim civil rights group asks jail to grant religious accommodation

The St. Louis chapter of the  (CAIR-St. Louis) is calling on the St. Louis County Jail in Clayton, Mo., to grant religious accommodation for Muslim inmates who wear a religious headscarf, or "hijab."

CAIR-St. Louis made that request after a Muslim woman who was jailed recently for several hours because of an unpaid traffic ticket reported that an officer forcibly removed her hijab. The officer allegedly told the woman, "take it (the hijab) off or we will take it off for you."

Religious rights should not end at the jailhouse door," said CAIR-St. Louis Executive Director Faizan Syed. "With goodwill on all sides, a solution can be reached that maintains constitutionally-protected religious rights as well as legitimate safety and security needs."

Syed noted that the recently refused to overturn a lower court ruling that said a Muslim woman "had the right to wear the scarf unless jailers could show it was a "

In that case, the Muslim woman's suit cited the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), which prohibits state and local governments from imposing "a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a person residing in or confined to an institution."