Uh, yeah. You’re in jail. That entails a certain denial of rights. “Muslim inmates sue ACI over meal plan,” by Katie Mulvaney in the Providence Journal, March 23 (thanks to Block Ness):
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Sunni Muslim inmates serving time in maximum security at the Adult Correctional Institutions are suing prison administrators, accusing them of violating their rights by denying them the freedom to pray together and meals that comply with their faith.
The Muslim Brotherhood of the Islamic Faith allege in a suit filed in U.S. District Court that correctional officers routinely taunt them by calling them terrorists and the Taliban. The inmates say the guards threaten to retaliate against their complaints by placing them in isolation.
A Department of Corrections lawyer has denied the allegations and argues the case should be dismissed because the administrators were acting in good faith and not with deliberate disregard for the prisoners’ needs or rights. The Muslim Brotherhood had failed to exhaust administrative remedies under the Department of Corrections inmate grievances, policies and practices….
The Muslim Brotherhood members who brought the lawsuit include Alvin Smith, convicted of stabbing two children to death in 1988; Shea Cook, serving time for murdering a stripper and tossing her body in a Connecticut river; and Simeon Briggs, who shot and killed two strangers as the left a city nightclub in 2003. They are representing themselves, led by Corey Day, who is doing time for burglarizing Ocean Tides, a school for troubled youth in Narragansett. They seek unspecified damages.
According to the complaint, the inmates say they are being denied their right to religious freedom because they are not being allowed to pray together openly in the yard or library. Their faith dictates they pray to Allah five times a day.
In addition, they argue they are given four slices of bread, three of cheese, and a vegetable in response to requests they be offered a diet that complies with their faith. The rest of the population eats meat loaf, hot dogs and fried chicken, they said.
“What the ACI is doing by serving us substandard food is forcing is to chose between the pangs of hunger … or to compromise our faith and eat unlawful food … ,” Day wrote….
She said Muslim inmates are offered a meal plan during 30-day Ramadan that includes a breakfast bag of fresh fruit, hard boiled eggs, pastry, doughnuts, muffins, or cereal. Their evening meal is a pre-plated kosher meal. There is a feast at the end of Ramadan that includes chicken, collard greens, sweet potatoes, canned corn, soda, rice, and corn bread….
Torture!