Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Head Scarves OK’d in Jail

PHOENIX (CN) - The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office will allow women detainees and inmates to wear religious head coverings. The new policy was established after a Muslim woman was denied her right to wear a head covering while detained, the ACLU says.

Sheriff's deputies forced Eman Mabrouk to remove her hijab, a religious head scarf, while she was in custody at the Fourth Avenue Jail in September 2008. Mabrouk sued the county in July 2009, claiming her First Amendment rights were violated.

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office denied Mabrouk's claims, but settled out of court, the ACLU says.

Under the policy, which was implemented in December 2008 but recently was publicized by the ACLU, women will be provided with white cloths to wear as head scarves during religious services. The policy does not mention if the sheriff's office will allow women to remove their scarves and put on the white scarves outside of the presence of men, the ACLU said.

Mabrouk was detained for questioning in a domestic dispute and says a sheriff's sergeant told her she would have to take "that thing off" her head. She says she pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her head in an attempt to comply with her Islamic beliefs. Muslim women must remain covered at all times in public and in the presence of men.

Follow @jamierossCNS
Categories / Uncategorized

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...