Mecklenburg sheriff settles with a woman whose hijab was removed at jail
The Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office has settled with a woman who was forced to remove her hijab for a booking photograph, she said at a news conference on Friday.
“They tried to strip me of my dignity, but my dignity is from my creator, not their institutions,” Laila El-Ali said.
She and her attorney, Ismaail Qaiyim, said Charlotte-Mecklenburg police arrested her after she participated in a protest last year. Police wrote her up for a noise ordinance and impeding traffic, but the charges were dismissed and eventually expunged, she said.
On Feb. 26, 2024, protesters filled Charlotte’s city council chamber and called for the city to pass a resolution in support of a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. Some protesters briefly blocked a street in uptown.
As part of the settlement, the sheriff’s office updated its policy on religious head coverings.
“Individuals in MCSO custody are permitted to wear the religious head coverings they entered with throughout the facility unless there is a compelling reason that requires temporary removal, including, but not limited to, safety or security reasons,” the policy now says.
Sheriff Garry McFadden said in a statement that the lawsuit was a learning experience for him, and that he is committed to learning more about Islam.
“The Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office has always been committed to honoring and respecting the sincerely held religious beliefs of every individual in our care, including residents of our detention center,” McFadden said. “The recent lawsuit filed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations highlighted the need to review our policies on religious headwear.”
An attempt at humiliation, woman says
El-Ali said a detention officer removed her hijab while she was in processing. She considered it an attempt to humiliate her.
“She not only searched me in front of everyone; she lifted my shirt,” she said. “There were male officers around as well… I couldn’t remove my hijab because I was still cuffed.”
She said she begged to keep it on at least temporarily.
“Please, just keep it on for this booking photo,” she recalled telling jail staff, adding that she knew her community would see it.
But the detention officer still removed it, El-Ali said, and called it “contraband.”
Wearing a hijab is part of a Muslim tradition of modesty, though it has represented other social and political ideas over time, too.
“It’s a very special connection that we have, wearing the hijab, and especially wearing the hijab in a country (where) there’s a lot of Islamophobia,” El-Ali said, adding that each woman who wears one will have her own attachment to it.
The photograph of El-Ali without her hijab on found its way to a mugshot website, causing her further embarrassment before it was taken down, her attorney told The Charlotte Observer.
Activists speak out about Gaza
El-Ali and other speakers spent much of Friday’s press conference pointing to the rising death toll in Gaza, criticizing the Israeli government and United States support of that government.
Around the world, political pressure is growing against Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who told the United Nations General Assembly on Friday that his country must “finish the job” against Hamas. Dozens of delegates walked out in a show of disapproval.
Since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that killed around 1,200 Israelis, more than 65,400 people have been killed in Gaza and 167,160 have been injured, according to data used by the United Nations.
“Why aren’t we funneling those (tax) funds into our own community here in Charlotte?” El-Ali said at one point Friday. “Why are we so adamant? What is our purpose of funding the genocide in Palestine?”
The world’s largest professional association of genocide scholars recently agreed with the assessment that Israel is committing genocide.
Ryan Oehrli covers criminal justice in the Charlotte region for The Charlotte Observer. His work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The Observer maintains full editorial control of its journalism.