NYC to Pay $17.5M to Muslim Women Forced to Strip Hijabs
New York City will have to pay $17.5 million into a fund available to Muslim women as part of a federal settlement deal after the NYPD forced them to remove their hijabs for mug shots.
The preliminary settlement deal, filed in court on Friday, will permit impacted women to seek $7,824 to $13,125 in damages for each occasion they had to remove their religious head garment during booking in the period between March 2014 and August 2021. The financial arrangement represents the upshot of a lawsuit two Muslim women, Jamilla Clark and Arwa Aziz, brought against the city in 2018, arguing the police department had violated their civil and constitutional rights by forcing them to expose their hair for a photograph following their arrest.
Their initial complaint describes how each wept uncontrollably after officers forced them to remove their hijabs in separate arrest incidents, leaving their hair visible to unfamiliar men, which they said not only went against their religious beliefs but left them feeling “violated” and “broken.”