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Muslim religious-rights case has parallel in Philly prisons
Four Muslim inmates allege the Philly Prison System denied them the right to pray individually or to regularly attend communal prayer.
Muslim religious-rights case has parallel in Philly prisons
A lawsuit over whether a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, violated the religious freedoms of Muslim inmates has made national headlines this week, thanks to the inclusion of John Walker Lindh — a.k.a. the American Taliban — among the plaintiffs in the case. Meanwhile, a similar case against the City of Philadelphia and its Philadelphia Prison System has been more quietly winding its way through the federal district court here in Philly. At issue: Whether the city violated the First Amendment rights of the inmates, who were all at the city's largest jail, the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, by allegedly preventing them from praying in communal spaces, denying them the right to return to their cells to pray, and limiting attendance at weekly group prayers.
Judge Norma Shapiro of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania this week denied motions for summary judgment both from the city and from lawyers for the four men: Olaf Sutton, Oba Jackson, Kevin Pickard and Troy Daniels. A court-appointed lawyer for the four, Gerald Williams, says that means the case could go to trial, possibly as soon as October.
The men, who all are also among several hundred inmates who have filed civil suits for damages over conditions of confinement related to overcrowding, say their First Amendment rights were violated because they were denied the ability to perform Salat — prayer to be performed five times per day, individually, upon a prayer mat — and to join in Jum'ah, the weekly communal service held on Fridays. Both rituals are obligatory for religious Muslim men.
Salat was restricted, the men argue, because they were not allowed to pray in day rooms and not allowed to return to their cells to pray. And they claim that even if they could return to their cells, prayer was often impossible both because there was no room in cells with a third bed (a cot or "blue boat" on the cell floor) and because cells were "filthy" and contained uncovered toilets, making for unsanitary and therefore inappropriate places for prayer. They said moving the boat aside to pray was not an option in some cases, due to constrained space and the objections of non-Muslim cellmates. The result, their complaint alleged, is "a kind of 'catch-22' for Muslims." That is, "If (as happens daily) Salat is called when they are out of their cells, they cannot pray, and are disciplined if they do."
As for Jum'ah services, only a portion of Muslim inmates may attend in a given week, because of PPS security concerns and, according to the city, a history of violence and attempted murders at the prayer service. Because there was only one, part-time Muslim chaplain at the time the complaint was filed (more volunteers are now being trained, according to court documents), additional services were not an option.
The city's lawyers argue that men were able to pray in their cells and in general follow the tenets of their faith without substantial interference. "PPS has developed a rotation which attempts to afford each inmate the opportunity to attend Jum'ah once a month," their motion reads. "Additionally, efforts to have more than one Jum'ah service each week have been thwarted by the lack of volunteers from the Muslim community to come in and act as a monitor for the service. These facts demonstrate that it is not prison policy that prevents Muslim inmates from congregating for Jum'ah, but rather a lack of clergy and authorized volunteers."
While the ruling in Indiana could theoretically impact prison practices across the country, Philly prisons may have broader latitude depending on whether the court deems that they do or do not technically operate with federal funding that makes them subject to the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.
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