Includes lawsuit against the city of Long Beach.
AB Wire
Muslim women were discriminated against in separate incidents because of their religion and for wearing the hijab, according to two lawsuits filed in California, on Monday.
One of the suits claims that police in Long Beach forcibly removed a suspect’s headscarf while another suit alleges that a group of women were kicked out of a Laguna Beach coffee house for being Muslim, reported AFP.
According to the complaint against the city of Long Beach and its police department, Kirsty Powell and her husband were pulled over by two officers while driving home in May of last year.
She was subsequently arrested on two outstanding warrants — one linked to her sister allegedly falsely using her identity and one in relation to a 2002 shoplifting incident at a grocery store.
Powell, who is African American, alleges that while being booked at the police station, one of the officers forcibly removed her headscarf in view of other male officers and inmates, telling her she was “not allowed to wear her hijab” and that policemen were “allowed to touch women.”
The suit states that Powell “suffered and continues to suffer extreme shame, humiliation, mental anguish and emotional distress” as a result of her experience.
In the other lawsuit, a group of seven women claim that they were kicked out of Urth Caffe, in Laguna Beach, last month because they were Muslim.
The women, six of whom wear the headscarf, allege that management had asked them to vacate their table on April 22 on grounds that the restaurant was busy and that the policy limited seating to 45 minutes when no free tables are available. When the women refused to leave, the coffee house called in the police, the AFP report said.