AhlulBayt News Agency: A notice of claim has been filed against Oakland County Sheriff's Office after officers allegedly removed the hijab of a detained Muslim woman by force.
The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI), a local branch of the country’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, filed a Notice of Claim today against the Oakland County Sheriff's Office and Sheriff Micheal Bouchard for violating the religious rights of a Muslim woman from Dearborn.
The woman, whose name has not been disclosed, was forced to remove her hijab, or Islamic headscarf, by a male officer while she was detained in Oakland County Jail in August 2023.
CAIR-MI Executive Director Dawud Walid said that the hijab is a "sincerely-held religious belief" of thousands of Muslim women in Michigan, including in Oakland County, and that removing it in front of men and creating a permanent public record of her without it is "highly offensive".
He added that Oakland County, which has a large Muslim population, should respect the religious rights of all its Muslim citizens and that the incident at the jail "falls significantly short of the Sheriff's Office's legal and ethical obligations to those they are tasked to protect and serve".
CAIR-MI Staff Attorney Amy V. Doukoure expressed her disappointment at the "abject violation" of Muslim women's constitutional rights by Michigan's law enforcement agencies.
She said that Oakland County Jail had policies in place that should have prevented the "gross violation" of the woman's religious beliefs, but that they were not "trained, followed and enforced" by those in charge.
According to the rights group, the woman was arrested by the Waterford Township Police Department and transferred to Oakland County Jail, where she was searched by a male officer in front of three other male officers and stripped of her hijab.
She was not allowed to wear a hijab for the duration of her stay at the jail and was exposed to male staff, officers and inmates without it. She was also forced to take a booking photograph without her hijab, which was later posted on the Sheriff's Office's public website.
She was released without charge after her detention.
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The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI), a local branch of the country’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, filed a Notice of Claim today against the Oakland County Sheriff's Office and Sheriff Micheal Bouchard for violating the religious rights of a Muslim woman from Dearborn.
The woman, whose name has not been disclosed, was forced to remove her hijab, or Islamic headscarf, by a male officer while she was detained in Oakland County Jail in August 2023.
CAIR-MI Executive Director Dawud Walid said that the hijab is a "sincerely-held religious belief" of thousands of Muslim women in Michigan, including in Oakland County, and that removing it in front of men and creating a permanent public record of her without it is "highly offensive".
He added that Oakland County, which has a large Muslim population, should respect the religious rights of all its Muslim citizens and that the incident at the jail "falls significantly short of the Sheriff's Office's legal and ethical obligations to those they are tasked to protect and serve".
CAIR-MI Staff Attorney Amy V. Doukoure expressed her disappointment at the "abject violation" of Muslim women's constitutional rights by Michigan's law enforcement agencies.
She said that Oakland County Jail had policies in place that should have prevented the "gross violation" of the woman's religious beliefs, but that they were not "trained, followed and enforced" by those in charge.
According to the rights group, the woman was arrested by the Waterford Township Police Department and transferred to Oakland County Jail, where she was searched by a male officer in front of three other male officers and stripped of her hijab.
She was not allowed to wear a hijab for the duration of her stay at the jail and was exposed to male staff, officers and inmates without it. She was also forced to take a booking photograph without her hijab, which was later posted on the Sheriff's Office's public website.
She was released without charge after her detention.
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