Posted on 12/17/2008 11:40:19 AM PST by Melissa 24
DOUGLASVILLE, Ga. - A judge ordered a Muslim woman arrested Tuesday for contempt of court for refusing to take off her head scarf at a security checkpoint. The judge ordered Lisa Valentine, 40, to serve 10 days in jail, said police in Douglasville, a city of about 20,000 people on Atlanta's west suburban outskirts. Valentine violated a court policy that prohibits people from wearing any headgear in court, police said. The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations urged federal authorities to investigate the incident as well as others in Georgia. "I just felt stripped of my civil, my human rights," Valentine told The Associated Press on Wednesday from her home, after she said she was unexpectedly released once CAIR got involved. Jail officials declined to say why she was freed. No comment from judge Municipal Court Judge Keith Rollins said that "it would not be appropriate" for him to comment on the case. Last year, a judge in Valdosta in southern Georgia barred a Muslim woman from entering a courtroom because she would not remove her head scarf. There have been similar cases in other states, including Michigan, where a Muslim woman in Detroit filed a federal lawsuit in February 2007 after a judge dismissed her small-claims court case when she refused to remove a head and face veil. Valentine's husband, Omar Hall, said his wife was accompanying her nephew to a traffic citation hearing when officials stopped her at the metal detector and told her she would not be allowed in the courtroom with the head scarf, known as a hijab.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
I can see banning veils that obscure the face (especially for a witness or defendant). But a headscarf that leaves the face exposed seems innocuous enough in a court room. I know my grandmother would never go to church without a scarf to cover her head.
In a couple of years that's how all women in America will be required to dress. It's not like she was wearing a crucifix or anything.
She can kiss my a$$, as long as she does it through a piece of Saran Wrap...
But I bet she’d go to court in Georgia without a scarf to cover her head if she was told the court’s rules prohibited head coverings, wouldn’t she?
When she starts talking about her civil rights being stripped she’s talking American Law. You can’t talk American Law out one side of her burka and not obey out of the other.
Keep it up. Enforce it to the letter. Maybe they will leave. Or maybe they will get violent and we can start shooting in self defense. Either way it works out.
Now THAT’S good sarcsasm!
This judge has balls. This is precisely what we need as we face Islamofacism.
Good point.
"Valentine’s husband, Omar Hall, said she was accompanying her nephew to address a traffic citation Tuesday when she was stopped at the metal detector and told she would not be allowed to enter the courtroom with a head scarf."
"Hall said Valentine, an insurance underwriter, told the bailiff that she had been in courtrooms before with a scarf on; that removing it would be a religious violation. She became frustrated, then turned to leave and uttered an expletive, Hall said."
“U.S. judge jails Muslim woman over head scarf”
With any luck, she’ll grow dispondent in jail and hang herself with that head scarf wrapped around her neck...one less muzzie in America.
Sure. But the scarf was not a religious requirement for her outside of church. For some religions, head coverings are required- some Jews wear yarmulkes, Sikhs wear turbans, for example. Unless the head covering interferes with the functions of the court, I don't see any legitimate reason to ban it.
“Stripped of her human rights”. eh? Has she been circumcised?
I can see where a strict Jew would wear his skull cap.
Seems reasonable to me. So some lady within the confines of her religion isn’t supposed to be in public without her head covered? Sounds equally reasonable.
Jail time?
We have some REAL criminals out there boys.
Not surprising at all. Religion as excuse. Only to be practiced when it's time to get payed, mmm hmm. Oh no he didn't.
Church is one thing, and I’d have a problem if a court said something about what she could wear in church. Court is another thing entirely . If it’s against the rule in court either don’t go or don’t wear something that is sure to get you trouble. There is a good reason for banning headgear of any kind in a court....hidden weapons comes to mind.
In the original story, I thought she was actually jailed for contempt of court after uttering an expletive.
The more rules we create, the more criminals we have. This judge seems to have a chip on his shoulder. What's the point of making a religiously observant person take off their head covering if it is not interfering with court business? A Hasidic Jew, for example, might well be more willing to take a secular punishment for failing to appear in court, rather than commit a sin.
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