On February 2, 2019, The Muslim Law Student Association at the UDC David A. Clarke School of Law hosted a symposium entitled "Our Forgotten Community: Prisoner's Rights & Religious Freedom".
The conference shed light Muslims behind bars and how their rights are frequently violated, especially during Ramadan. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects a prisoner's right to practice their religion of choice without interference, however, there is no doubt that jails and prisons throughout the country frequently violate the religious rights of inmates who peacefully seek to worship.
The event brought together lawyers, scholars, and activists – some who spent time in prison such as Yusef Salaam from the infamous Central Park Five jogger case – and others who have dedicated their careers advocating for prisoner rights like Professor Eric Balaban of Georgetown Law. Speakers shared their stories and provided evidence of how some correctional facilities throughout the country are systematically breaching the rights of their Muslim Inmates.
Covering many topics such as incarceration and religious freedom, Guantanamo Bay, and Blacks as domestic terrorists, the speakers explored different options of how to help this forgotten population. More importantly, they raised awareness to educate the public about ongoing violations such as denying adequate meals during Ramadan for Muslim prisoners. Last year the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed at least three lawsuits in three different states on behalf of Muslim plaintiffs against three prisons because they “starved” and fed them pork products during Ramadan.
The event began with opening remarks by John C. Brittain, Acting Dean of the University of the District of Columbia’s David A. Clarke School of Law. The first panel was moderated by UDC Associate Professor of Law Saleema Snow. She was joined on the panel by Lena Masri, Jonathan Smith, Professor Khaled Beydoun, and Professor Ajmel Quereshi.
Opening the discussion CAIR National Litigation Director Lena Masri emphasized that as Muslims, we have an obligation to protect those prisoners because they are vulnerable and completely dependent on the government. Masri has litigated numerous cases involving constitutional rights and religious accommodations on behalf of American Muslims in jails and prisons nationwide. She mentioned a number of cases where she had to intervene in order for prisoners to get their religious materials and realized that many facilities are trying to deny religious materials as a part of a systematic approach to prevent Muslims from practicing their faith.
She even mentioned an example of this pattern when she was contacted by an inmate at the Riverside Regional Jail. After trying to understand the problem she discovered that the facility was literally preventing inmates from converting to Islam by creating segregated living quarters -- what inmates refer to as the "God Pod" -- for those inmates who agree to study and live their lives in accordance with the Bible while it does not allow any other religious practices in the facility.
Masri also mentioned another case of a prison in Arkansas where the facility was forcing Muslims to have Friday prayer combined with other faith groups. One of the Muslim inmates refused to pray in this manner, so he was taken off of the Muslim list and no longer allowed to take part in any religious activity including Ramadan; he didn't have a single meal during the entire month of Ramadan.
Dr. Khaled Beydoun, a law professor at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, said many of these violations are rooted in the fear of prisoner radicalization. He added that most of the rights that Muslims are enjoying today go back to the '60s when the Nation of Islam, an African American political and religious movement conceived in Detroit in 1930, pushed for religious liberties. Just as the Nation of Islam prisoners were denied their rights in the 1960s because they embodied a the threat of blackness combined with the threat of being Muslim, Muslim inmates today in the post-9/11 era are also denied their religious rights out of a fear based on ignorance.
Dr. Yusef Salaam was a member of the Central Park Five, a group of teenagers wrongfully imprisoned after the brutal sexual assault of a jogger in Central Park in 1989. The victim, a 28-year-old investment banker named Trisha Meili, was beaten with a rock, tied up, raped and left for dead. She was discovered hours later. Yusef talked about his experience when he was arrested with four other teenagers. “The police deprived us of food, drink and sleep for more than 24 hours … under coercion, we falsely confessed. Though we were innocent, we spent our formative years in prison, branded as rapists," he said. Salaam also recalled how Donald Trump used his money to take out full-page ads in all of the city’s major newspapers, urging the reinstatement of the death penalty in New York. Yusef said that he was terrified that he might be executed for a crime he didn’t commit.
After one day of interactive dialogue and discussion, experts emphasized that it is a duty to defend the rights of Muslim prisoners to practice their faith freely including having access to halal food, growing beards, and attending Friday prayer. They also asserted that Muslim prisoners are truly the most forgotten community because of their vulnerability as Mesri affirmed when she was asked why she defends “those criminals?” She said we “owe a responsibility to those who are most vulnerable and there is no population more vulnerable than those Muslim prisoners."
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