The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is suing the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office for civil rights violations, after deputies forced two Muslim women to remove their hijabs and then photographed them without their head coverings in 2024.
Serine Abuelhawa and her sister Marjannah Hassan were arrested in June 2024 after taking part in a peaceful pro-Palestine protest at Portland’s Rose Festival Grand Floral Parade. The two were part of a group of eight people who were arrested during the protest that day.
As the Mercury reported in 2024, Abuelhawa objected to removing her hijab (religious headscarf) in front of male deputies. It’s considered inappropriate for Muslim women to be seen without their hijab by men outside of their immediate family.
Both women were photographed for booking photos without their head coverings. Abuelhawa told the Mercury last year that she requested a female jail deputy to oversee the booking process, but a woman at the jail appeared unfamiliar with the religious significance of the garment, and Abuelhawa was forced to remove it.
After the incident, a representative for the Sheriff’s Office said the matter would be “addressed with the booking deputies that were involved to ensure they understand MCSO policy.” The Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on its policies related to religious customs and would not say whether any employee underwent training or faced discipline after last year’s incident at the jail.
The lawsuit says that by photographing the two women, the Sheriff’s Office violated their rights under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. The alleged violation is perpetuated, the complaint asserts, because the photos were uploaded into a statewide law enforcement database that can be repeatedly accessed.
“Forcing these young women to remove their hijabs was a clear violation of their dignity and religious freedom,” Gadeir Abbas, deputy litigation director for CAIR, stated in a news release about the new lawsuit. “It is unacceptable that the county still retains these violative photographs.”
The lawsuit notes that being photographed without their hijabs by strangers was a “deeply humiliating and defiling experience” for Abuelhawa and Hassan. The plaintiffs are seeking an unspecified amount in damages, along with erasure of the booking photos, and an order requiring Multnomah County to establish policies that protect the religious rights of Muslim women in custody.
Aya Beydoun, an attorney with CAIR, says respecting the customs and civil rights of Muslim women “doesn’t require complex policies or major resources—it simply requires basic respect.”
“A private room, a female officer, and simply allowing them to wear their hijabs in the photo would have prevented this entirely,” Beydoun stated in CAIR’s news release. “The law demands better, and so should we.”
The Multnomah County Jail isn’t the only entity accused of violating detainees’ civil rights regarding religious beliefs.
CAIR is also behind a federal lawsuit alleging the Oregon Department of Corrections has repeatedly denied religious accommodations for three Muslim men currently incarcerated there.
