Star Tribune
Federal prison in Waseca faces lawsuit claiming Muslim woman forced to remove hijab for photo ID
A Muslim civil rights organization has sued leaders of the federal prison in Waseca, Minn. for violating a Somali American woman’s constitutional right to religious freedom, alleging that officers forced her to remove her hijab, photographed her and made her carry an ID displaying the picture.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed the lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of inmate Muna Jama, seeking an order for the Federal Correctional Institution in Waseca to destroy her uncovered photographs in the system’s database and end the practice of taking and using uncovered pictures.
“Mrs. Jama was often threatened if she did not comply with orders to remove her hijab – including threats to cut off her communication with her children,” CAIR Legal Fellow Aya Beydoun said in a statement. “The hijab is a sacred part of Mrs. Jama’s identity and her connection to God. No one should be forced to choose between their faith and the ability to speak to their children.”
The suit claims that while Jama was permitted to wear her hijab throughout the prison, she was still required to carry a photo ID that displays her head, ears and neck each time male officers need to identify her during headcounts, at commissary or other checkpoints. Every time Jama swiped her ID card, CAIR alleged, her hijab-less photo appeared on the database screen for any males in the vicinity to view – causing her shame and embarrassment.
The suit filed in U.S. District Court says Jama found that officers had a hard time telling who she was by her ID card because she always wore her hijab in the prison.
A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which oversees the Waseca federal prison, said it does not comment on matters related to pending litigation for privacy, safety and security reasons.
In 2019, Aida Shyef Al-Kadi won a $120,000 settlement after officers at the Ramsey County Jail forced her to remove her hijab and undress following her arrest for a traffic offense. The settlement with Ramsey County required the jail to institute rules on accommodating inmates with religious headwear during photo bookings, and the county agreed to destroy hard copies and electronic versions of Al-Kadi’s booking photo. Hennepin County developed such a policy in 2014 with CAIR’s approval that became a statewide model.
The suit says that Jama, a Somali refugee who came here as a child, has been married for 18 years and is the mother of seven children. She’s worn a hijab since she was young and has never willingly been seen in public without it. Her driver’s licenses in Virginia and Washington, along with her passport, depict her wearing a hijab, and her faith requires her to always wear one when she is around men who are outside her immediate family.
Jama has been in federal custody since 2016, after she and a co-defendant were convicted in a bench trial of conspiring to provide material support to the Somali terrorist organization al-Shabaab. Federal authorities said Jama helped organize a network of women who sent less than $5,000 to the group in East Africa, and she was sentenced to 12 years.
She was sent in 2019 to the prison inWaseca, a low-security correctional institution 70 miles south of Minneapolis. As has been the case in every other federal prison, CAIR alleged, an officer told Jama that wearing her hijab was not allowed for her ID photo. She screamed and begged in vain to convince him of her religious rights, and the lawsuit says that she acquiesced only after the officer threatened her with solitary confinement.
Jama filed a complaint with the Bureau of Prisons in July 2022 alleging a violation of her religious rights. CAIR says that resulted in Jama being brought in for a new ID picture, when officers took a photo of her with her hijab on. Then they told her they would need to take another picture without her head covering. When Jama questioned them, according to the suit, they threatened her with solitary confinement and she complied.
The filing says that a prison official claimed the second, uncovered picture was for security reasons. But when Jama lost her ID and asked for a new copy, she received the one with the uncovered photo, and she said she observed the hijab-less photo used in the “Bed Book Count” and on the system screen while scanning her ID card. Her photo also appears on her hobby craft locker in view of other people.
CAIR notes that a longtime Bureau of Prisons policy allows scarves and headwraps for imprisoned women who practice Islam and a handful of other religions, but that the institution lacks written rules addressing the photographing of women without religious head coverings.
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and her daughter were among the throngs Friday as President Joe Biden delivered the apology that many Indigenous Americans thought would never come.
“I think he really said the things that people have been waiting to hear for generations, acknowledged just the horror and trauma of literally having our children stolen from our communities,” said Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. “It’s a powerful first step towards healing.”
Hundreds of boarding schools operated in the 19th and 20th centuries, separating Indigenous children from their families and forcing them to assimilate to European ways. Many children were abused, and at least 973 died, according to a report from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Other Minnesotans reacted similarly to Flanagan, saying they welcomed the apology but that additional action is needed to help Indigenous people move forward.
Anton Treuer, a professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, wrote in a newsletter that the apology was “a welcome first step on the journey to healing.”
“There is no way to truly right historical injustices for the children buried at Carlisle, Haskell, and other schools, but these words set a new tone for the country and will help heal the anguish so many Natives have carried for so long,” Treuer wrote. “It gives me hope that we can come together to reconcile and heal our troubled nation.”
Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton, the first Indigenous woman to serve in the state Senate, called Biden’s apology encouraging.
“This recognition of past wrongdoings is an important step towards healing relationships between the United States and the sovereign nations affected by these past systems,” Kunesh said in a statement. “This dark period of American history must be remembered and taught.”
“I have done everything in my power to remedy this situation, and it continues to get more and more violent by the day,” Moturi wrote. “There have been numerous times when I’ve seen Sawchak outside and contacted law enforcement, and there was no response. I am not confident in the pursuit of Sawchak given that Sawchak attacked me, MPD officers had John detained, and despite an HRO and multiple warrants — they still let him go.”
On Friday, five City Council members sent a letter to Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Brian O’Hara expressing their “utter horror at MPD’s failure to protect a Minneapolis resident from a clear, persistent and amply reported threat posed by his neighbor.”
Council Members Andrea Jenkins, Elliott Payne, Aisha Chughtai, Jason Chavez and Robin Wonsley went on to allege that police had failed to submit reports to the County Attorney’s Office despite threats being made with weapons, and at times while Sawchak screamed racial slurs. Sawchak is white and Moturi is Black.
The council members also contend in their letter that the MPD told the County Attorney’s Office that police did not intend to execute the warrant for “reasons of officer safety.”
At a Friday afternoon news conference at MPD’s Fifth Precinct, O’Hara said police had been working to arrest Sawchak since at least April, but “no Minneapolis police officers have had in-person contact with that suspect since the victim in this case has been calling us.” The chief pointed out that Sawchak is mentally ill, has guns and refuses to cooperate “in the dozens of times that police officers have responded to the residence.”
O’Hara put aside the option to carry out “a high-risk warrant based on these factors [and] the likelihood of an armed, violent confrontation where we may have to use deadly force with the suspect.” The preference, he said, was to arrest Sawchak outside his home, but “in this case, this suspect is a recluse and does not come out of the house.”
ROCHESTER – The Federal Transit Administration has green-lighted an $85 million grant supporting the development of the city’s planned Link Bus Rapid Transit system.
The FTA formally announced the grant on Friday during a ceremonial check presentation outside of the Mayo Civic Center, one of the seven stops planned for the bus line. The federal grant will cover about 60% of the project’s estimated $143.4 million price tag, with the remaining funds coming from Destination Medical Center, the largest public-private development project in state history.
Set to go live in 2026, the 2.8-mile Link system will connect downtown Rochester, including Mayo Clinic’s campuses, with a proposed “transit village” that will include parking, hundreds of housing units and a public plaza. The bus line will be the first of its kind outside the Twin Cities — with service running every five minutes during peak hours.
“That means you may not even need to look at a schedule,” said Veronica Vanterpool, deputy administrator for the FTA. “You can just show up at your transit stop and expect the next bus to come in a short time. That is a game changer and a life-transformational experience in transit for those people who are using it and relying on it.”
The planned Second Street corridor is already one of the busiest roads in Rochester, carrying more than 21,800 vehicles a day, and city planners have talked for years about ways to reduce traffic congestion in the city’s downtown. Local officials estimate that the transit line, which will rely on a fleet of all-electric buses, will handle 11,000 riders on its first day of operation and save eight city blocks of parking.
Speaking to a crowd of about 100 people gathered on Friday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar said the project shows Rochester is thinking strategically about how it handles growth.
“If you just plan the business expansion, and you don’t have the workforce, you don’t have the child care, the housing or the transit, it’s not going to work very well as a lot of communities across the nation have found,” Klobuchar said.
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