Muslim Sues Over Prison Visit, Headscarf

Wisconsin prisons to change policy on religious headwear

(Published Friday, May 27, 2005 09:55:20 AM CDT)

By Ryan J. Foley
Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. - The Department of Corrections will change its policy to allow visitors to Wisconsin prisons to wear religious headwear, Secretary Matt Frank said Thursday.

He spoke a day after the department and two male prisons guards were accused in a federal lawsuit of violating a Muslim woman's right to practice her religion by forcing her to remove her headscarf.

"I'm very concerned about the allegations," Frank told The Associated Press. "We can and will make accommodations to ensure our prison system operates safely and securely while recognizing the right that visitors have to practice their religion."

Frank said systemwide policy that went into effect in January 2003 banned visitors from wearing hats or headwear of any kind before they could enter the prisons for security reasons. The rules did not include an exemption for religious headwear.

Frank stopped short of apologizing to Cynthia Rhouni, of Madison, saying he was still looking into the allegations contained in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Madison.

Her lawyer, David Lasker of Madison, cheered the policy change on Thursday, saying it shows "there was no reasonable way in the world for them to justify what they were doing and what happened to Ms. Rhouni." Her lawsuit had sought the change in policy and continues to seek unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

"It doesn't excuse what happened and it really doesn't change the fact that the experiences that she had in trying to deal with the policy were very traumatic emotionally and extremely upsetting to her," Lasker said.

Rhouni, who describes herself as a devout Muslim, claims that male prison guards ordered her to take off her scarf, or hijab, in order to visit her estranged husband at the maximum-security Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, north of Madison.

One of the guards told Rhouni that "a new law" prohibited any head covering in the visiting room for any reason, according to the lawsuit.

Rhouni told the guards of the religious significance of the scarf - Muslim women are supposed to wear it in public, especially in the presence of men - but they rejected her offer to allow a female prison guard to inspect it before she could put it back on.

Because she wanted to allow her husband to see her teenage son who was having problems in school, she decided to enter the prison scarfless. She said she was humiliated. "I just felt totally naked. I was really, really hurt," Rhouni said in an interview Wednesday.

While the ban on headwear would appear to apply to Catholic nuns, frequent visitors to the state's prisons, Frank said he is not aware of any other complaints.
 

Source: Janesville Gazette, WI