A Muslim woman and an American Muslim advocacy group are suing a Michigan judge for forcing the woman to remove her hijab in court, reports said on August 27. “I felt very discriminated [against] and humiliated,” Raneen Albaghdady, 32, told a press conference at the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit. Albaghdady, an Iraqi immigrant who was in court to change her name, was ordered by Wayne County Circuit Judge William Callahan to remove her hijab during a June 16 hearing. The Muslim woman said she feared arrest if she refused to remove her hijab. “I was hurt…I was really, really scared and terrified. I come from a country where you can’t say no to a judge in a courtroom,” she said.
In December, Lisa Valentine, a Muslim woman, was denied access to a Georgia state court and jailed for refusing to take off her hijab. Albaghdady still believes that the judge’s order violated her First Amendment right to freely practise her religion. “This is the country and the land of freedom, and we’re not supposed to be treated like this for the scarf.” The plaintiffs are demanding an apology and a ruling forbidding judges from forcing Muslim women to remove the hijab.