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Supreme Court to hear case of Obama-backed Muslim prisoner who wants prison rules on beards changed

Oct 7, 2014 4:59 pm By Robert Spencer

Abdul Maalik Muhammad“The state responds that inmate beards could pose a security risk to guards and the public.” Safety? Pah! Islam must be accommodated! Wherever Islamic law and American law conflict, American law must give way — and the Obama Administration will fight for that.

“Justices to debate prisoner’s religious right to grow a beard,” by Bill Mears, CNN, October 2, 2014:

(CNN) — An Arkansas inmate seeks to exercise what he says is a key tenet of his faith, but corrections officials cite security concerns in their refusal to accommodate. The issue comes down to a half-inch beard, and this claim of religious liberty within prison walls will now be debated by the Supreme Court.

The justices will kick off the first week of their new term with a one-hour oral argument Tuesday. The case will be another major test of the government’s ability to justify a range of policies that might restrict religious accommodation — from the Obamacare health law to workplace hiring.

Gregory Holt, also known as Abdul Maalik Muhammad, is a Muslim who filed a handwritten petition with the high court. He cites rights under the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, or RLUIPA.

The state responds that inmate beards could pose a security risk to guards and the public: Prisoners who escape could shave their facial hair, altering their appearance. And weapons and other contraband could be hidden in heavy beards or inside their cheeks, covered by facial hair.

Current Arkansas prison policy allows only a “neatly trimmed mustache.”

The Obama administration is backing Holt, and some legal analysts say that could ultimately sway the justices, who have traditionally been deferential to the security judgments of prison officers….

But in his self-initiated plea to the justices, Holt complained that he and fellow Muslims were forced “to either obey their religious beliefs and face disciplinary action on the one hand, or violate those beliefs in order to acquiesce” to the facial hair policy.

He cited the Hadith — literary traditions and sayings of the Prophet Mohammed — which says, “Allah’s Messenger said, ‘Cut the mustaches short and leave the beard (as it is).’ ” Holt said he offered to keep his beard to a half-inch as a “compromise,” but that was rejected.

The U.S. Justice Department has offered its support, saying more than 40 states and the federal correctional system allow beards of varying lengths.

“When Congress enacted RLUIPA, it made clear that courts should accord deference to prison administrators’ considered judgments about how to run safe and efficient prisons,” Obama administration lawyers told the court in a written brief. “Congress also made clear, however, that such deference is not due when a prison justifies a restriction based on exaggerated fears or mere speculation.”

The state obviously sees things differently. Holt is housed at the Varner Supermax, a 468-bed, ultra-maximum security section of the correctional facility in Grady, Arkansas, near Pine Bluff.

Officials point to Inmate 129-616’s self-admission as a “Yemen-trained Muslim fundamentalist” with a violent criminal past. He had been indicted by a federal grand jury for threatening to harm then-President George W. Bush’s two daughters.

A few years later, he was convicted in state court and sentenced to life in prison for breaking into the home of his ex-girlfriend and severely wounding her, slitting her throat and stabbing her in the chest.

Law enforcement officials say he threatened to wage “jihad” against anyone who helped convict him, both at trial and later behind bars.

So state leaders had a simple message for the courts: Allow us room to decide which restrictions work best within each institution’s unique circumstances.

“Prisons are dangerous places … officials create rules intended to strike a delicate balance between safety and security, on the one hand, and giving inmates a sense of dignity and achieving rehabilitative goals, on the other hand,” said the Arkansas brief to the high court. Corrections officials take “religious freedom seriously,” but they also take seriously their “paramount interests in safety and security, too.”…

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Filed Under: courtroom jihad, Islamic supremacism, Jihad in prisons, Stealth Jihad Tagged With: featured


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Comments

  1. Champ says

    Oct 7, 2014 at 5:06 pm

    islam is wholly evil, and obama is a close second …

    • timothius says

      Oct 7, 2014 at 6:58 pm

      Well he is partial to Muslims!

  2. Cora Nott says

    Oct 7, 2014 at 5:11 pm

    When the prisoner is jailed in Sandland, he can wear a beard. This is the U.S.A., no beards, no goatees. NO SHARIA LAW. Hello, President Obama…remember you are President of the United States. Try hard to keep that in mind!

  3. mike ryan says

    Oct 7, 2014 at 5:24 pm

    Of what possible concern to the federal government should an individual state’s penal rules be?

  4. Mirren10 says

    Oct 7, 2014 at 5:40 pm

    Having a beard is a ‘key tenet’ to being a mohammedan ?

    Goodness me, all these beardless mohammedans out there, need to get a grip ! ( or a beard 🙂 )

    Aslan, you need to call your mates at CAIR, and get right on this anomaly ! Beardless Imam Webb needs to get together with CAIR, and sue the arse off the prison. This poor mohammedan’s civil rights are being violated !

    • mortimer says

      Oct 7, 2014 at 6:23 pm

      ‘Key tenet’? No. A custom.

      What is the purpose of the ‘jihad beard’? Exactly that. The jihad beard differentiates the kafir from the Muslim so the Muslim may discriminate against, avoid, cheat, bamboozle, lie to and FIGHT the kafir in jihad!

      The jihad beard is per se a form of discrimination so it should be illegal.

    • medina says

      Oct 7, 2014 at 11:04 pm

      Reza Aslan–Exhibit A.

    • pumbar says

      Oct 8, 2014 at 12:41 am

      Luckily Baroness Warsi has one so she’s off the hook (unlike Abu Hamza, who has lots of hooks).

  5. John C. Barile says

    Oct 7, 2014 at 5:50 pm

    What an inspiring life story this Abdul Maalik Muhammad has! What fine calibre of character these Muslim converts have! Not.

  6. Bezelel says

    Oct 7, 2014 at 6:06 pm

    Not being willing to follow the rules kindof sortof has something to do with his punishment. Now that he has plenty of time on his hands and access to a law library he has nothing better to do than legal jihad, to see how far he can buck the system and ruin it for inmates who have legitimate grievances. The first thing that he should be told is that he is not supposed to enjoy his time in prison. Even after accommodating islam in Gitmo, the entitlement oriented supremacist prisoners have no gratitude for it.

  7. somehistory says

    Oct 7, 2014 at 6:17 pm

    When a person commits a crime against the *state,* that person gives up many *rights* he may have exercised freely before being incarcerated.
    His *religion* may have demanded he go to the movies or out for ice cream each week. He may have been required to contribute a percentage of his weekly earnings to his local congregation or to other activities performed while in a free condition.
    Now, he is in prison because he committed crimes against the *state.* He has forfeited some of the rights that one who has not committed against the state are allowed to exercise.
    The beard is not a guaranteed *freedom* if the *state* against which he committed his crime says it endangers others who have not committed crimes. Photos of non-bearded muslims who are in the public eye should be used as evidence against his claims of it being a requirement of his religion.
    If he wins this one, what is next? His requirement as a muslim to go to mecca?

  8. Alarmed Pig Farmer says

    Oct 7, 2014 at 6:36 pm

    The breed of the Longhaired Pointers
    Prayer rooms, footbaths, special meals, Fridays off, the Moslems have special needs,
    Their men must have thick beards, they’re more special than men from lesser creeds.
    Even in prison, accommodate them, make the bottom of their cots point at the Qibla,
    That’s the point, point to Mecca, where it all started, Lo! The sneaking Devil’s Shangrila.

    • Bezelel says

      Oct 7, 2014 at 9:44 pm

      I hate to say it, because I’m fond of bird dogs, but their stance is more like a setter.
      I prefer to think of their stance as a bitch in heat.

  9. cigardude says

    Oct 7, 2014 at 6:40 pm

    Since when do the prisoners dictate how they are coiffed. It’s their right NOT to have beards, or mustaches, and be dressed appropriately for doing their sentence. Why give them what they want, they are being PUNISHED!!! Maybe Barry HUSSEIN wants to take their place?

  10. Anon says

    Oct 7, 2014 at 6:52 pm

    Buy-a-rock just-air-bomb-ya says: “I’m telling you for the 14th time, dammit, that Islam is a religion of peace and we have to be nice to these terrorists.”

  11. holly taxpayer says

    Oct 7, 2014 at 6:52 pm

    Hell No ! No No This man murdered a women He shouldnt have any rights .Im so sick of this

  12. Annie Oakley says

    Oct 7, 2014 at 7:30 pm

    Sanitary living conditions for ALL inmates and the safety of the staff/other inmates/the public is a primary concern when formulating facility rules. Arkansas state law may not require the same number of square feet per inmate that the federal government allows.

    A minimum amount of hair on the head means that there are fewer places for head lice to hide. There is a lower risk for transmission of lice to staff or inmates. In the event that an inmate becomes infested with lice, a minimal amount of hair also makes it easier to de-louse the inmate without resorting to court orders to shave the hair and beards of affected inmates.

    In other words, a clean-shaven or neatly-trimmed inmate is less dangerous and is also cheaper for the taxpayers to support.

    But part of the lawfare that muslims wage against the rest of us is designed to bleed as much money out of the US taxpayers as possible.

    If it were up to me, I’d shave the facial hair and head hair of every convicted inmate housed in any facility I was in charge of. If the inmates don’t like that, they should make a point to never come back to my “Grey Bar Hotel”!

  13. 11B40 says

    Oct 7, 2014 at 7:49 pm

    Greetings:

    Probably unsurprisingly, I just watched the PBS NewsHour’s coverage of the issue and Islam never entered into the conversation.

  14. Tommy Guns says

    Oct 8, 2014 at 2:42 am

    And the nonsense continues, unabated for yet another muslim. He’s just wasting the courts time. Why should any violent offender be allowed special privileges anyway?? Muslims denounce every religion in the world, and they expect us to respect their religion??!?
    Corrections officials make a good point when they cite that beards pose a danger to the prison staff and the public. “If they escape, it would be difficult to identify them”. I know this to be true because it happened to me. For many years I wore a beard myself. Shortly after saving off the beard, I went to visit an uncle. He was stunned when he realized it was me. He said, “I didn’t know it was you until I heard your voice”. End of story, no special privileges for prisoners, especially muslim prisoners!!!!!!

  15. Centurion_Cornelius says

    Oct 8, 2014 at 8:01 am

    Well, well, well…so SCOTUS can’t be bothered to offer the slightest bit of guidance on states’ rights to define the oldest virtuous human institution and the core of civilized nations–marriage–BUT they will fiddle around with Musloids’ beards in the lockup?

    Folks–this is getting bizarro for even me.

    I say SCOTUS outta MANDATE beards on full-blooded, certified, religion-of-peace male Musloids. At least that way, we’d have a “visual” on these evil, odious, and villainous creatures. Sorta reverse camouflage, all for the better.

    Back in the day, when we’d street fight, rumble, slug it out, or otherwise settle our differences with other men, we’d be sure to go into the fray clean-shaven.

    This we learnt from the ancients–Greeks and Romans fighting in B.C. times. You really don’t want your opponent grabbing a handy hand-hold on your face. Our Judo and Wrestling coaches drilled it into us: “He who controls the head, controls the whole body.” It’s true–take my word for it.

    So then, once again ancient history again proves its worth by hearkening back to it. Radical Islam must be opposed, stopped, and destroyed.

    Me–I will just “dust off” my good ole’ Judeo-Christian hand-to-hand combat skills. Once learned never forgotten–like riding a bike or swinging a ball bat.

    BEARDED SONS OF MURDEROUS MOHAMMED–bring it!

    Yours truly,

    C.C.

  16. GP says

    Oct 8, 2014 at 10:39 am

    A few years later, he was convicted in state court and sentenced to life in prison for breaking into the home of his ex-girlfriend and severely wounding her, slitting her throat and stabbing her in the chest.-

    This must be a “moderate muslim” because he only slit his ex-girlfriends throat and did not slaughter and behead her.

  17. SMG says

    Oct 8, 2014 at 2:01 pm

    I could care less what crime he committed. Confiscate all his property, bank account, etc. , revoke his and his family’s American citizenship, and just put him and his family on a flight to the Middle East and leave them there where he’s free to practice Islam. His family is just as guilty for letting him ‘convert’. They bear equal responsibility. And this is the way I feel about anyone who converts to Islam, and any Muslim who plots to or does commit a crime in this country.

    • dumbledoresarmy says

      Oct 9, 2014 at 8:35 am

      You wrote: “His family is just as guilty for letting him ‘convert’. They bear equal responsibility”.

      Really???? What age was this man when he converted to Islam? If he was over 18, then his parents – or are you also including under “family” any and all other family members? – surely *cannot* be held fully responsible for that, any more than they can be held fully responsible for anything else he does.

      If parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins *had* tried to dissuade him (and you don’t know they didn’t try) – would that make any difference to you??

      But in any case, if you think a person’s parents – even when that person is a full-grown adult, living away from home – have 100 percent command-and-control, life-long, over the life choices – good *or* bad – that that person makes, and must therefore be held equally responsible with them, for those choices, then you’re a fool.

      Query: when you say “family” do you mean parents only, or do you mean also grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins, nephews and nieces and children…and if so, are you seriously proposing that every time someone from a non-Muslim family converts to Islam, their *entire extended family* must be collectively punished by being rounded up and shipped out to the dar al Islam???

      Insanity.

      The *Muslim* world – and hell-holes like North Korea – go in for savage collective punishment of that kind.

      We in the West don’t.

  18. D.C. Watson says

    Oct 9, 2014 at 1:51 am

    Beards are not an Islamic mandate. This case is yet another waste of taxpayer money and the court’s time.

    http://www.answering-christianity.com/growing_beards.htm

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