Muslim woman barred from Ga. courtroom for wearing scarf
by The Associated Press
VALDOSTA - A Muslim woman seeking to contest a simple speeding ticket in Valdosta says she was denied access to a municipal courtroom last week for wearing a traditional Islamic head scarf.
Aniisa Karim, 20, said she was stopped after entering Valdosta's municipal court building Tuesday and told she would not be permitted to enter the courtroom wearing her scarf.
"I said, 'No, I'm Muslim ... I wear this for religious reasons and if you don't allow me in the courtroom with my scarf on basically you are violating my civil rights and my right to a free religion,' " Karim told the Valdosta Daily Times.
Karim said an officer told her the denial was due to "homeland security reasons" and that allowing her to enter would show disrespect to Judge Vernita Lee Bender.
She said she offered to walk through a metal detector and allow officers to use a handheld metal detector to scan the scarf.
A national Islamic civil rights group has taken up the case. In a letter to Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker, the Council on American-Islamic Relations asks Baker to "take appropriate action to ensure that the legal, religious and civil rights of Georgians of all faiths be maintained."
Baker's office and the Valdosta municipal court were unable to be reached by The Associated Press for comment on Sunday.
Ibrimhaim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington D.C.-based group, said neither Baker's office nor the Valdosta city attorney had responded to his group as of Sunday afternoon.
The letter from CAIR argues that barring Karim from the courtroom violated Georgia's code of conduct for judges and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which guarantees access to public facilities based on religious beliefs or practices.
Meanwhile, Karim said she decided to not challenge the speeding ticket and pay a $168 fine since that didn't require her to enter the courtroom.
"I feel like in the year 2007 things like this should not happen any more," Karim said. "Of course everyone doesn't know everything about different religions, but if I tell you, 'I'm Muslim this is a part of my religion,' I feel like if you are a public officer you should be educated enough to know."
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12 comments:
Gee, in Lamar County you cannot wear shorts to court. I am deeply and religiously offended.
It's called assimilation, in this case lack of assimilatiion.
Please note that during the great immigration debate over the last couple weeks, very few times was the word assimilation used.
In opinion the number one problem with our immigration policies are we do not require assimilation.
We give assimilation lip service and thus the many problems, ie, the Valdosta courthouse incident.
My motto, "No immigration without assimilation".
why cant you wear shorts to court? i have never heard of that, and dont tell me because of respect. have you ever wondered what a judge wears under that robe? hum
How much do we have to tolerate from the groups that think they should be handled differently than others? Muslims make me nervous, since they have such different beliefs than I do. Contrary to what the do gooders say.
I dont trust a single one.If they wear a scarf of turbin or whatever on thier heads I just want to slap it off 'em.
WI John Galt,
I wish you would use a new name. You are a mockery of everything ayn rand stands for. Assimilate is one thing, but religious diversity and freedoms define our culture. I argue that her refusal to remove her scarf is one of the most "American" things she could have done. Glad to see you fully understand Rand's entire objectivist argument.
I usually take the same stance the rest of you have taken when people start complaining about their rights being violated, and, for the most part, I believe the CAIR is doing more to hurt our situation than any other group in the nation.
However, there is no reason this lady should have been refused access to the courtroom. I believe she should have been searched and maybe even subjected to more extensive searches than the rest of us in order to protect everyone in the courtroom. But it seems to me she offered, and the officer still refused. It is that kind of ignorance that will alienate the moderate muslims (99%) from the rest of society and push them into the 1% extreme category against us. We need the moderate muslims on our side to act as a whisle blower on their extremist colleagues. We don't need to shun the religion of peaceful practicing muslims. That's like not letting someone weaing a "WWJD" bracelet into a courtroom because some extremem christians bombed an abortion clinic in the name of jesus.
I got a summons to jury duty that said I could not wear shorts. Talk about judicial arrogance.
She wouldn't remove it to be searched, which means she takes it off- the officer makes sure nothing is under it- then she puts it back on, they do this same exact thing to 3yr. old little boys wearing ball caps at security check points at Baseball games. Do you really think the guy said "You ain't comin' in here cuz you gots a rag on yo head!", hell no, this is liberal media wanting you to play pity for this lady refusing to do what everyone else in America has to do when going through security with a hat or garmet on thier head.
A security check point in America is specifically set up to make muslim rag wearin' womens lives difficult and to insult thier rights, it has absolutely nothing to do with security. I can't believe you can't see through this crap. If muslims would take to the streets and go through half the crap civil rights activists did, maybe they could complain then, but oh- no- all they do is bitch and whine until something blows up- then they are as quite as a mouse, the percentage who really want to help is almost non-existant. Everything is about religion to them until you talk about thier religion and its place in destroying HUMAN RIGHTS and creating turmoil everywhere it places its bloodied hand. They could be a great ally in this war on terror but they have yet to make it a point in which they need to improve, we can't do it for them.
Rev.MJB- Allah is da bomb!
Do they also require Catholic nuns to remove their habits, Mennonites women to remove their scarves?
Carl, your half-ass intellectual
review of my comments missed the point.
We are losing our American Culture because we are not requring assimilation. Because of the lack of assimilation we are becoming a more and more balkanize country.
If this continues America will become a group of balkanized cultures, each doing their own thing and we will have less and less that we can call the American Culture.
The muslim lady not wanting to remove her heading covering to enter the courthouse is just like the one in Florida who did not want to remove her face covering to have her drivers license picture taken. These may be extreme, but real issues we are dealing with in our policially correct society.
Somewhere, we have to say enough is enough...either submerse into our cultural (the most lenient in the world) or take a hike.
Butchering a goat in a kichen of a public restaurant, wanting to wear a face covering to have your picture taken for a ID card or drivers license are not part of the American Culture. The list goes on and on...it never stops!!!
Things will continue to get worse until we take a stand against those who want to come to our country, not for opportunities, but to harm and change our way of life.
You may like what is happening; however, I suspect you are in a minority.
As for Ayn Rand, I really like her thoughts about what happens when producers stop producing and the non-producers find themeselves lost in the wilderness.
Are you lost in the wilderness???
And how do you suggest we require people to assimilate into our country? Do we give mandatory english tests? 75% of the bloggers on this blog wouldn't pass. Do we make them attend church because an overwhelming percentage of american's are christian, and it is, in fact, our culture? Do we make them eat pork, or beef, or whatever delicious meat is forbiden by their religions? All of this is part of our culture. Shouldn't we require everyone to be just like us? Is that what American Culture is? Forcing someone to assimilate into a free society is impossible. The former destroys the latter.
If a legal immigrant wants to come here and live just as they did in the desert in Iraq or Iran, I don't care if they ever learn the first word of english, as long as they don't expect to use my tax dollars to get public documents printed in arabic and bring lawsuits when there are no foot washing stations in public or private buildings. There is no civil right that offers you all the "comforts" of your home country.
I read the article again, as well as some others I found on google, and it seems the officer was not out of line by asking her to remove her scarf. Just as was noted earlier, they ask little boys to take off their hats before entering a braves games. The way I read it at first it seemed as if she was being cooperative. I guess it was a little media biased trying to make a story out of nothing.
who gives a damn about these towel headed sand dans
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