2y ago

Kentucky jail made a Muslim woman remove her hijab and televised her strip search in its lobby, lawsuit alleges

www.cnn.com A Kentucky jail made a Muslim woman remove her hijab and televised her strip search in its lobby, lawsuit alleges | CNN

A Muslim mother of two, who was detained at a Kentucky jail earlier this year, says she was forced to remove her hijab and underwent “an unnecessary full body strip search,” which was “filmed and projected” on a TV screen for men and women in the jail’s lobby to see, according to a lawsuit she has f...

49 comments

Imo, remove hijab to be booked: reasonable. If the rest of her claim is true, what the fuck
- Yeah, that ain't right. Now they've foolishly and unnecessarily planted a seed of hate in the woman and the people she loves.
- Why not book her with her hijab? That's how she's gonna be almost all the time anyway so a picture without her hijab is a little meaningless.
  
  Immutable features only, I assume. If Joe always wears a baseball cap because he’s balding, should his booking photo include the cap? If Roy always wears a bandana, should that be included? If Jane always wears a burqa, should she wear it in the booking photo?
  
  Generally hats are removed to make sure people aren't smuggling things in their hair into the jail.

Would a nun be treated any differently if she was accused of a crime? I don't really have an opinion on it but I like thinking about that when a news story involves a hijab
- I'd hope not and she'd have to take whatever it's called off for the photo
  
  It's called a habit.
  The head thing specifically is a coif and veil and sometimes they wear a cornette which is the handmaid's hat essentially.
  
  Catholic Burka
- Are nuns supposed to keep their head covered all the time? If so then neither should be forced to take off their head cover.
  
  For a strip search? It should be done in presence of women only (as it's acceptable to show hair in front of other women) and that should be it. If everyone else gets a strip search there should be no exceptions, especially not a religious one (religion is a private thing, prisons are related to the State, both are supposed to be separate).
  As for the part where there was a projection in the lobby, that's completely disgusting and there's no justification for it.

Wow. Even for cops that's vile

What does a 'strip search' entail here? Not that I'm excusing the officers actions here - it's clearly reprehensible to be so callous about religious clothing and for it to have been observed by others via the tv - but I feel very differently if they streamed her naked vs clothed without her abaya
- You might feel differently, but she might not considering what it would mean to her personally based on her culture and religion. I think what matters is that either would be quite violating in this context.
  
  Yeah, I do agree - she was clearly uncomfortable, either way
- Exactly, facts of the case matter and the headline is rolling two controversial issues in this case into one.
  I believe the fact you are looking for is that she was searched in the nude in a private room with only one female officer (which itself is against the local policy). But afterwards...
  While Doe waited to have her booking photo taken, she was asked to wait on a bench in the jail’s lobby. The lawsuit states that’s when she realized there was a TV screen “hung right above the door where she had been strip searched” and it was streaming footage from inside the room and facing the lobby, for all in the room to see.
  This is pretty fucked up.
- In my experience a strip search can mean anything from get completely naked squat and cough to get down to your underwear and pull out the waistband all the way around.
  Also it’s always been in front of other arrested people.
  
  I mean, I've conducted probably quite a few if not at least a couple hundred strip searches myself when I was a Corrections officer. We used privacy screens and even if there was a lot of other inmates around, they had no visual of the stripped inmate, and were usually about 10 feet down the hall with a third C/O while me and my partner would conduct the search. Any religious articles like necklaces with a large enough pendant or cross, a kufi or what have you would be taken and searched, but I always immediately gave them back to the individual to put back on if they wanted/needed to. Typically, one officer is searching their clothes while the other directs the inmates to follow the steps, which is usually shake hands through hair, bend the ears, open the mouth and lift the tongue, raise arms, lift their junk, turn around lift both feet so the soles face you, then they spead their butt.

Fuck religion. It's a plague. But don't dehumanize people. I don't think people should be able to cover their body when being photographed for a crime. But let them get back to it.

49 comments