Muslim woman forced to remove hijab by police gets $85K

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Wed, 16 Aug 2017 - 02:55 GMT

BY

Wed, 16 Aug 2017 - 02:55 GMT

 Representative image (Source: Reuters)

Representative image (Source: Reuters)

CAIRO - 16 August 2017: A Muslim woman got an $85,000 lawsuit settlement from Long Beach city in California, US after she was forced to remove her hijab while in police custody, according to The Independent.

Kristy Powell and her husband were spotted while driving a “low-rider” car and were stopped by the police and taken into custody, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations [CAIR] which filed the lawsuit on Powell’s behalf.

Her repeated requests to be searched by female police officers and away from male police officers were ignored and was forced to remove her hijab, without respect to her religious beliefs which demand that she is not remove her headscarf in front of other men.

Powell filed a lawsuit of the incident in April 2016 and will be paid $85,000 to settle the lawsuit.

This incident caused a change in the city’s police department policy when dealing with the religious headwear, allowing Muslim women to keep their hijab, “unless there are security concerns.”

Powell was forced to spend the night in a holding cell without her hijab, describing the whole situation as causing her “severe discomfort, humiliation, and emotional distress.”

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