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Muslim Prisoners Sue California State Prison System
by Ayub Khan for IslamOnline
WASHINGTON, March 11 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Growing and keeping a beard seems non-controversial for Muslims, but for inmates lodged in some correctional facilities across the United States, the traditional Muslim practice has become a contentious issue.
Among the rights taken away from an individual when incarcerated once entering the prison system, is the right to sport a beard or long hair.
In response to the practice, a group of Muslim inmates in California have filed a class-action lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections challenging its rules barring them from growing facial hair.
Muslim inmates at Vacaville State Prison are invoking the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons act which says that prison administrators must prove that restrictions on religious practice must be based on a "compelling" government need.
Susan Christian, supervising attorney for the King Hall Civil Rights Clinic at the University of California at Davis, which represents the inmates, told The San Francisco Chronicle that, "Prison regulations need to be reasonable.
If [prison officials] do something that violates an inmate's religious freedom, they can only do so if there is a reasonable relationship between the regulation and some security interest," she stated.
But prison officials argue that inmates can easily hide drugs and weapons in their hair and beards posing a serious security threat. They also say that keeping a beard or long hair enables the prisoners to change their appearance quickly in case of an escape.
California's state attorney general's office also jumped into the debate in Januray and called the religious freedom law unconstitutional in a motion before the U. S. District Court in Sacramento. They argued that the California Department of Corrections has the duty to run a safe facility.
But Christian says, "It's very easy for the California Department of Corrections to walk into a courtroom and say, 'we have to do this because of security interest.' They have to back it up. They have to prove it's a compelling need."
The Muslim inmates' attorneys plan to file a response to the state's challenge next month.
Sikh and native-American Indian prisoners are also supporting Muslims in their fight for their rights.
Some experts on this issue also say there is a health related angle to the controversy. It is estimated that 25% of all African-Americans, - 40% of all Muslims in America - suffer from a medical condition known as pseudo folliculitis barbe, a condition which leads to a painful, disfiguring skin condition resulting from shaving.
There are about 5000 Muslim prisoners among a total population of 156,000 in California's 33 state prisons. Overall, there are 300,000-400,000 Muslims throughout prisons in America.
An estimated 35,000 prisoners embrace Islam every year. Even though there have been some improvements in recent years, Muslim prisoners still face many problems ranging from the availability of Zabeeha food, to denial of proper facilities for prayer services.
In 1993, there was a prison riot in the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility after Muslim inmates refused to take TB shots citing religious reasons. In the resulting 11-day siege that followed, one guard and nine inmates were killed.
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