Posted on 07/07/2014 10:44:25 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Attorneys say clients have religious rights afforded by same law cited by SCOTUS in controversial Hobby Lobby ruling.
Lawyers for two Guantanamo Bay detainees have filed motions asking a U.S. court to block officials from preventing the inmates from taking part in communal prayers during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The lawyers argue that – in light of the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision – the detainees’ rights are protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).
The motions were filed this week with the Washington D.C. district court on behalf of Emad Hassan of Yemen and Ahmed Rabbani of Pakistan. U.K.-based human rights group Reprieve said both men asked for the intervention after military officials at the prison "prevented them from praying communally during Ramadan."
During Ramadan, a month of prayer and reflection that began last weekend, Muslims are required to fast every day from sunrise to sunset. But what is at issue in this case is the ability to perform extra prayers, called tarawih, "in which [Muslims] recite one-thirtieth of the Quran in consecutive segments throughout the month."
U.S. Army Lt. Col. Myles B. Caggins III, a spokesman for the Department of Defense, told Al Jazeera on Friday that the "Defense Department is aware of the filing," and that the "government will respond through the legal system."
The detainees' lawyers said courts have previously concluded that Guantanamo detainees do not have "religious free exercise rights" because they are not “persons within the scope of the RFRA.”
But the detainees’ lawyers say the Hobby Lobby decision changes that.
"Hobby Lobby makes clear that all persons – human and corporate, citizen and foreigner, resident and alien – enjoy the special religious free exercise protections of the RFRA," the lawyers argued in court papers....
(Excerpt) Read more at america.aljazeera.com ...
Does this mean that we have to pay for birth control for terrorists???
RFRA basically says that the government cannot infringe upon religious beliefs/practices unless it passes two legal tests (both subjective, mind you):
1) The state must show that they are acting in a compelling interest
2) The state must use the least infringing method available to them
Keeping detained terrorists from congregating and potentially colluding or planning seems to be a compelling interest and allowing them to pray without allowing them to do so communally seems to be a minimal infringement.
Of course, that presupposes that non-citizen terrorist detainees are even subject to RFRA in the first place; even so, they’d lose on the merits.
Does this mean that we have to pay for birth control for terrorists???
na ,but maybe same sex marriage at Gitmo
I am shocked they aren’t able to pray during ramandan. I would think obamy/holder would make sure they could.
Gitmo prisoners have not standing...as I understand it.
Come on, we all know the SC didn’t mean EVERY religion, just the normal ones.
Come on, we all know the SC didn’t mean EVERY religion, just the normal ones.
Cults not included
Agree completely. I will only add that if the government only had to pass the first test, then the Hobby Lobby decision would have gone the other way, since the majority did indeed find that there was a “compelling interest” in providing the disputed “Plan B” contraception alternative to women. So the only reason Hobby Lobby prevailed was that it was clear that there were less restrictive ways to provide that access, since it was already being done differently with regard to religious NON-profit corporations.
In the Gitmo case, since the compelling interest would clearly be to keep the detainees from congregating, then there is no less restrictive way of doing that, other than to keep them from congregating.
Where does the RFRA say that?
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