Protesters sue Orange County over forced hijab removal

ANAHEIM, Calif. (CN) — Orange County and its sheriff’s department violated county policy and the First Amendment’s religious liberty protections when deputies removed a protester’s hijab, exposing her uncovered hair to news cameras, and then coerced her and another Muslim woman to remove their head coverings for booking photos, the women claim in a lawsuit.

Salma Nasoordeen and Shenai Aini, both in their 20s, were arrested during the Orange County and other local law enforcement’s raid on the student Gaza solidarity encampment at the University of California, Irvine on May 15, 2024.

In their complaint filed on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Aini claims that at the protest, she was surrounded by male law enforcement officers who threw her to the ground while stomping on her hijab, causing it to unravel, all while local news cameras filmed and broadcast the scene.

When she pleaded with the officers to allow her to adjust her head covering, her hands were zip-tied. Eventually, after another woman pleaded with another officer, the officer draped her hijab over her head but didn’t fasten it in place.

At a booking facility, a female sheriff’s deputy ordered her to remove her hijab again and unzip her pants in a room within view of an open hallway and a transparent glass window where males, including other officers, could see Aini, she claims. After inspecting her hair and pants for weapons, Aini was told to take off her hijab for two different booking photos, again in view of male officers, she claims.

Nasoordeen also claims that within an hour of arriving at the UCI campus to observe and support the peaceful protest, she was knocked to the ground and arrested by sheriff’s deputies, then taken to a booking facility where she was also ordered to take off her hijab in rooms where males could see her exposed hair.

Those pictures with their hair uncovered are now part of a permanent public record that further harms them, Nasoordeen and Aini claim.

In passport photos and other pictures taken for government-issued IDs, she’s never been asked to remove her hijab, Nasoordeen said.

Both plaintiffs wear the hijab in the presence of men outside of their immediate families as an important spiritual practice that signifies their faith and personal commitment to modesty, they say in their suit. “Once a Muslim woman makes the decision to wear the hijab, requiring her to remove it in the presence of men who are not part of her immediate family is akin to demanding that a secular person strip naked in front of strangers.”

By forcing them to take their hijabs off, the sheriff’s deputies not only violated their religious beliefs, causing them to feel humiliated, shame, anger, a loss of bodily autonomy and fear of publicly expressing their faith, but their constitutional rights to religious freedom and the county’s own policy of how law enforcement is supposed to treat detainees who wear religious head coverings, the plaintiffs write in their suit.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department has a policy whereby inmates who wear religious head coverings are supposed to be escorted into a private area by a deputy of the same gender who then is allowed to search their hair for weapons and contraband. The detainee is then supposed to be given a temporary head covering and then take off the head covering in a private area where a booking photo can be taken. After the photo is taken, the detainee is supposed to be allowed to wear their head covering again.

The officers that booked Nasoordeen and Aini’s failure to do that indicates that Sheriff-Coroner Don Barnes, the head of the department and the county government not only were negligent, intentionally inflicted emotional distress, violated the First Amendment’s protection of religious liberties and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, but also failed to train rank and file deputies in their own policy, the plaintiffs claim.

“It is not for the state to decide when it can be removed,” said Dina Chehata, the Council on American–Islamic Relations, Los Angeles (CAIR-LA) civil rights managing attorney and an attorney for the plaintiffs, at a press conference in Anaheim, California, on Tuesday. “Our laws are clear, people do not shed their religious rights when they’re arrested. They don’t become less worthy of respect because they dissent, and they’re not required to surrender their faith at the jailhouse door.”

Nasoordeen and Aini are requesting the court to declare that the defendants are violating constitutional and statutory law, an order stopping the defendants from doing it again and damages after a jury trial.

“I am devastated. In any religious community, our head coverings are not political statements. This was an attack, not only on myself, but every Muslim woman that day. This was conducted with a sense of power and humiliation by the OC sheriff’s department,” Aini said at the press conference. “This is not an isolated event. Every individual who speaks with resistance is met with repression and criminalization. By filing this lawsuit, I hope that no individual is forced to endure the pain, humiliation, violation of religious beliefs and degradation I had to endure at the hands of the OCSD.”

No women were required to remove their hijabs in front of male employees or members of the public, Carrie Braun, a spokesperson for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, wrote in an emailed statement.

“Women were asked to privately remove their hijabs only once while inside the jail facility for a booking photo, and this occurred with only female deputies present. No force was used during this process; the women voluntarily removed their hijabs for the photo and immediately put them back on before leaving the private area. Jail security video from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department documented the booking process.”

Booking photos, Braun added, are not publicly releasable documents under state laws.

“Unfortunately, false and divisive statements made to the public only serve to undermine trust and incite fear. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department actively collaborates with various religious groups to foster strong community partnerships and has established conscientious policies and procedures to balance the constitutional rights of incarcerated individuals to express their religious beliefs with the need to maintain safety and security in our custodial facilities,” she added.