Hawzah News Agency- Layla Soliz was arrested with 11 other demonstrators at the University of Tennessee campus on charges of criminal trespass on May 15, 2024. During Soliz's booking, KCSO deputies took her mug shot with and without her hijab, a head covering worn by Muslim women as part of their faith, according to a federal lawsuit Soliz filed against the sheriff's office on Oct. 7.
The sheriff's office chose to publish the photo of Soliz without her hijab, violating agency policy not to make public photos showing a person without their religious head covering. After Soliz complained, the sheriff's office replaced the mug shot with one showing her with her hijab, but not before it was obtained by third-party websites that publish booking photos.
Soliz and her lawyer sued to force KCSO to change its booking procedure to never force a person to remove a religious head covering for a booking photo as well as to get Soliz's uncovered booking photo expunged from the KCSO internal database.
"Requiring an observant Muslim woman to remove her hijab in front of men who are not her family members is humiliating and degrading – akin to requiring a woman to take off her shirt in public," the lawsuit says.
Hijabs are worn by women in the Muslim community for modesty and as a symbol of faith. The hijab prevents men outside a woman's family from seeing her hair.
The lawsuit asserts that there was no reason to publish Soliz's uncovered mug shot on the KCSO website, let alone take the booking photo without the hijab in the first place. Additionally, the suit says that KCSO and Sheriff Tom Spangler had originally "retained Mrs. Soliz’s uncovered booking photo and refused to destroy it''.
Source: Knox News
Your Comment