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ACLU Asks Sheriffs to Address Removal of Religious Headwear

June 20th, 2013

The American Civil Liberties Union is sending letters to sheriff departments across Georgia to ask them to address the practice of requiring detained individuals to remove religious headwear. The organization says it’s making the request after learning about several people who were in custody in Georgia jails that were forced to remove their religious attire.

The ACLU says it’s aware of three incidents where those detained in Georgia jails were asked to remove their religious headwear. Azadeh Shahshahani Directs the National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project for the ACLU of Georgia. She says unless the government can show the restriction is absolutely necessary and is for a very important purpose, the headwear’s removal violates the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000.

“The purpose of the letter is just to ensure the sheriffs are aware of what the law is and to ensure individuals’ rights to religious liberty are being respected going forward.”

The organization is also asking for departments to send their policies regarding religious headwear and records of instances where detainees were prevented from wearing religious attire. Shahshahani says the most recent incident occurred last year in DeKalb County.

“A woman of Muslim faith was brought into the jail and as she was being booked in she was told she had to remove her headscarf, and she did say and assert and say she was wearing her headscarf because of her faith.”

And she says the woman wasn’t given back her headscarf after being processed. Since that time, the ACLU says it made recommendations to DeKalb County and the department has modified its policy. But the ACLU claims a similar incident involving a Muslim man occurred in Lumpkin County in 2011 and another incident with a Muslim woman occurred in Douglas County in 2009.

Douglas County Chief Deputy Stan Copeland says his department generally allows those in custody to wear religious headwear after the headwear is searched when they enter the jail. But he says the woman involved in the 2009 incident was not given her headwear back because she threatened deputies and they were concerned about her using it as a weapon.

“Once you make direct threats to staff. Many types of headwear that are made of a scarf material can be used as a choking instrument or an instrument to strangle, so we have to weigh that against a person’s demeanor. That’s true for any inmate coming in regardless of what they have.”

WABE contacted the Lumpkin County Sheriff’s office but did not receive a response by deadline.