Biden Judge Rules Muslim Terrorist Has Religious Right to Keep Hijab in Federal Prison

In a troubling development, a terrorist front group that has gained tremendous influence by suing and lobbying to embed Islam in American public institutions has succeeded in getting the nation’s federal prison system to submit to Islamic law. The case involves the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a radical Muslim charity that was named as a co-conspirator in a federal terror-finance case involving the Hamas front group Holy Land Foundation. CAIR was founded in 1994 by three Middle Eastern extremists (Omar Ahmad, Nihad Awad and Rafeeq Jaber) who ran the American propaganda wing of Hamas, known then as the Islamic Association for Palestine. For years CAIR has used the U.S. legal system and widespread pressure campaigns to influence various areas of American public life, most recently by strong-arming Maryland’s largest taxpayer-funded school district to give students the day off in observance of a Muslim religious holiday known as Eid al-Fitr.

Now the extremist group that claims to advance Muslim civil rights is celebrating a huge legal victory that will impact a central component of the U.S. criminal justice system, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FOB). The agency with over 33,000 employees oversees the custody of some 154,000 federal inmates throughout the country. The FOB as well as the state prison system bans hats and other head covers for security and safety reasons. A few years ago, a Somali Muslim woman, Muna Jama, was required to remove her hijab—a head scarf used as a symbol of modesty in the Islamic dress code—during booking and official prison identification photos were taken. Jama was convicted and sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for conspiracy to provide material support to the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab, which has strong ties to al-Qaeda. Jama helped operate an online network that raised and disbursed money to al-Shabaab for jihadists plots, military operations and safehouses.

CAIR sued the BOP on the terrorist’s behalf, asserting that the prison system’s policy is unconstitutional and violates her religious rights. Forcing the convicted extremist to remove her hijab, photographing her uncovered and requiring her to carry that uncovered photo on an ID she must present throughout the prison everyday is a violation of federal law, according to the complaint. Jama’s faith requires her to always wear a hijab when she is in mixed-gender spaces outside of her immediate family, the court document states, adding that her religious beliefs are deeply rooted in Islamic texts and teachings. “Her hijab is a pillar of her religious practice and integral to her identity as a Muslim woman,” CAIR’s lawsuit reads. Appearing in public or being photographed without the and having that photo accessible to strangers is a serious breach of Jama’s faith and deeply humiliating, the group states. As a result, the convicted terrorist “has sustained damages, and has suffered and continues to suffer mental anguish, physical and emotional distress, humiliation, and embarrassment,” according to the complaint.

A Biden-appointed federal judge in Minnesota, Jeffrey M. Bryan, agreed and recently issued an order affirming the rights of incarcerated Muslim women to wear a hijab despite established security protocols banning all head covers. The judge also directs the FOB to destroy all of Jama’s booking photographs without her hijab, writing that “the retention of Jama’s uncovered photo further substantially burdens Jama’s religious exercise because the photo’s mere existence means a non-familial male could potentially view the photo, thereby violating Jama’s religious beliefs.” The case is the latest of many in which CAIR has altered the way American law enforcement agencies do their job. Years ago, an Atlanta jail caved into CAIR’s demand that Muslim inmates be allowed to wear hijabs. Under Obama CAIR got the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to purge anti-terrorism training curricula of material coined “offensive” to Muslims, a scandal uncovered by Judicial Watch and documented in an in-depth report. The terror front group also got several local police departments and the U.S. military to eliminate anti-terrorism training materials and instructors deemed anti-Muslim. At CAIR’s request, Obama’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, actually ordered the U.S. military to “scour its training material to ensure it doesn’t contain anti-Islamic content.”