Muslim women fight for right to wear Islamic headscarf

When Raghdaa Ali of Dearborn Heights attempted to walk into a cash advance store one day last summer to get a money order, an employee pointed to the Islamic headscarf Ali wore and said: "You need to take it off."

The Advance America Cash Advance store in Inkster has a sign outside that reads: "Please Remove hat and Sunglasses" and requires customers to be buzzed in to enter and temporarily remove their head coverings for security reasons.

But as an observant Muslim woman who keeps her head covered in accordance with her faith, Ali tried to explain why she unable to remove her scarf, known as hijab. She was denied entry and told that unless she left, police would be called.

"I felt really hurt that day," recalled Ali, a native of Iraq. "I'm a U.S. citizen and should not be treated differently because of my religion. This is pure discrimination against hijab."

Ali later filed a lawsuit, and now her case may come to trial this year in Detroit, illustrating growing tensions as Muslim women fight for the right to wear hijab in public places. It's a conflict that has come up more frequently in recent years as a religious minority seeks acceptance of its faith.

In addition to Ali's lawsuit, there have been several other cases involving Muslim women in metro Detroit and the U.S., which civil rights advocates say shows a pattern of misunderstanding about hijab. On Tuesday, Maha Aldhalimi sued the city of Dearborn, saying their officers forced her to take off her hijab for a booking photo after arresting her on parking violations.

In Michigan, several police departments of municipalities that have growing Muslim populations — Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Hamtramck and Canton — are wrestling with how to deal with Muslim women who wear hijab when they are arrested. Police are asking them to remove their hijab for photographs and identification purposes, but Muslim women say they should be allowed to keep them on or at least have female police officers handle them. They note that the Secretary of State allows Muslim women to have on hijab for their drivers' license photos.

"These are constitutional violations," said Canton attorney Nabih Ayad, who has handled several hijab cases in recent years. "You have to respect the right to wear religious attire."

Violation of rights?

Robert Sedler, a distinguished professor at Wayne State University Law School who teaches constitutional issues, agrees, saying that it appears the rights of Muslim women who wear hijab are being violated during police booking photos and in the Advance America case.

Ayad filed a lawsuit last month against the Oceana County Sheriff's Department on behalf of Fatme Dakroub, a Muslim woman of Arab descent from Dearborn who wears hijab and was on vacation in the county with her family. On May 17, she was pulled over by police for allegedly speeding in a parking lot and was told her license was suspended, both of which Dakroub disputes.

Arrested and handcuffed, the officer took her to the station, where she "was asked to remove her headscarf in front of three male officers," said the lawsuit, filed May 28 in U.S. District Court in Detroit.

Dakroub said she explained to the officers the "substantial religious significance of her headscarf and clearly told the officers that she did not want to remove her headscarf because of her religious beliefs."

"Dakroub requested for a female officer to oversee her booking when removing her headscarf, but was told that having a female officer was not an option," the lawsuit said.

She then said she was placed in a holding cell without her headscarf for about three hours next to male cellmates, some of whom made passes at her, further humiliating her.

Oceana County sheriff's officials did not return a call seeking comment.

Aldhalimi said she faced a similar experience on Sept. 15, 2014, after police spotted her in a no-parking zone at a Walmart in Dearborn. Police arrested her on a warrant for an unpaid parking violation and ordered her to remove her hijab for the booking photo in the station.

Aldhalimi said she tried to explain to them why she needed to keep it on, but officers ordered her "to remove her hijab or it would be removed involuntarily against her will."

Dearborn spokeswoman Mary Laundroche didn't comment on the lawsuit or on city policies with how its police treat Muslim women who wear hijab.

'Symbol of modesty'

For many Muslim women who wear hijab, having their head uncovered in front of men who are not immediately family members — such as parents, brothers, sons — is like being naked. Islam teaches that women, and also men to some extent, should be dressed modestly and cover themselves in certain areas. The Islamic headscarf is the most visible symbol, but the idea of modesty also can include loose-fitting clothing that doesn't reveal the shape of a body.

"It's a symbol of modesty," explained Ali. "We wear it in front of male strangers."

The sensitivity around it can lead to tensions with police departments that might not be aware, or care, about the concerns of Muslims. In January, a lawsuit was filed by Ayad on behalf of a Muslim woman from Dearborn Heights, Malak Kazan, against Dearborn Heights police, accusing their officers of making her remove her headscarf to take her booking photo, which requires no hats or head coverings.

"To have her hair and neck uncovered in public," the lawsuit said, is a "deeply humiliating, violating, and defiling experience."

Like Dakroub, Kazan, 27, said she explained to the officer that she couldn't remove her hijab because of her faith, and requested to have a female police officer present. The male Dearborn Heights officer "denied that request and threatened to further her detention if she did not comply."

Dearborn Heights officials did not return calls seeking comment. In their legal response, their attorney said that Kazan "is a scofflaw and an individual who habitually drives on a suspended license."

The city strongly defended its policies in the legal filing, saying that "individuals may be hiding contraband in the hijab, such as a razor blade, or an illegal substance, and further, biometric data is necessary in the booking process, and that is a statutory requirement."

It said that "any individual, regardless of race, age, ethnicity, etc., must remove all items covering their head or neck."

Moreover, "a female officer is not always present or on duty or available."

"The City of Dearborn Heights Police Department does everything it can to respect every individual's religious custom, but in furtherance of the protection of the citizenry, a compelling state interest determines that female Muslims must remove all head covering."

A spokesman for Advance America Cash Advance, Jamie Fulmer, had similar views, saying that they ask people to remove their head coverings for security reasons.

While "Advance America respects all religious beliefs and serves all customers with dignity and respect, for the safety of our customers and employees, we do have a security policy in place that requires anyone seeking entry into our centers briefly remove any hoods, hats, sunglasses or other head coverings," Fulmer said. "It is an important security measure designed to ensure that anyone entering our centers can be easily identified. That policy was being enforced in this particular case. The safety and security of our customers and employees are our primary responsibilities and we take them seriously."

Sedler said that in the case of Advance America, it appears that what happened to Ali may have violated the state's civil rights law, the Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act. He compares her situation to that of an observant Jewish man who might be denied service for not removing his kippah, which covers part of the head.

"These types of things, in my opinion, reflect discrimination against Muslim people," Sedler said. "If she's being refused service, what is the justification?"

Regarding the issue of police departments, Sedler said it appears unconstitutional to force a Muslim woman to remove her hijab to take her photo. The city of Dearborn Heights says it has a "compelling state interest" to remove it, but Sedler said "there's a serious constitutional question of whether requring her to remove her hijab for booking is precisely tailored to advance the compelling government interest."

"We're talking freedom of speech, freedom of religion," he said. "They have to have a strong justification. ... The state doesn't have it."

In the cases of being jailed, though, the city may have more of a case, Sedler said.

Then there's the veil

The issue of niqab — the Islamic face veil that covers the entire head except for a narrow slit showing the eyes — has also come up in recent years in Michigan. In 2009, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that judges can decide whether to allow women to wear niqab when testifying. Last year, a Wayne County judge was believed to be the first judge in the U.S. to allow its use, in the case of a Muslim leader on trial for sexual assault.

Sedler said that while women have the right to keep on a hijab for police booking photos, they wouldn't for niqab because the person couldn't be properly identified.

In 2009, Raneen Albaghdady of Dearborn Heights was told by Wayne County Circuit Judge Bill Callahan to remove her headscarf when she was before the court. The judge requires hats to be removed, and said later he thought she was wearing a hat, not a religiously mandated headscarf.

Majed Moughni, a Dearborn attorney, said he hopes the city of Dearborn changes its policies.

"If the prisoner doesn't remove the Islamic scarf, they are threatened with physical removal, which is even a greater violation of a women's honor," Moughni said. Given Dearborn's sizable Muslim population, "the mayor of Dearborn knows better than to allow this abuse to continue."

Akeel, who is Ali's attorney in the Advance America case, said that "in my 17 years of practicing law, I have never seen such blatant discrimination in denying someone service because they choose to practice their faith."

Akeel said this issue is not just important for Muslim women, but for other religious minorities with unique dress, such as a Sikh who wears a turban or an Orthodox Jewish man with a head covering.

"My hope is that they change their policies," Ali said of Advance America. "I don't wish for other women to be treated the way I was treated. ... We are all human. We should be treated the same."

Contact Niraj Warikoo: 313-223-4792 or nwarikoo@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @nwarikoo.