Muslim Woman Sues After Police Force Her to Remove Headscarf

A Muslim woman in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn Heights is suing that city’s police department, saying the police violated her right to religious freedom when they requested that she remove her hijab, or headscarf, after she was arrested.

Malak Kazan says police in Dearborn, Michigan, violated her rights when they required her to remove her headscarf in front of unrelated men

© Instagram, Malak Kazan

Malak Kazan was taken in for driving with a suspended license and booked on two outstanding warrants for numerous traffic violations. 

Kazan said she had to remove her hijab when she was arrested after traffic stop last November. The police department said that like any other head wrapping, a hijab can hide harmful items, and that’s why she was asked to remove the headdress at the time of the booking photo. 

Kazan’s attorney said that is no excuse, telling reporters, “Your religious freedoms are not stripped at the jailhouse door. It's part of the (canons) of their faith to wear a headscarf. For her to have to remove in front of a non-relative male, it would be a non-pleasant experience for her.”

The usual procedure is to have Muslim women remove the hijab in front of a female officer, but there were none present at the time of Kazan’s arrest. The arresting officer spoke with a supervisor, who told him to proceed with the booking. 

Kazan is suing to have the police department change its policy and allow the hijab remain in place for booking photographs. 

“Wearing a headscarf is a reminder of her faith, the importance of modesty in her religion… as well as a symbol of her own control over who may see the more intimate parts of her body," the lawsuit said. “To have her hair and neck uncovered in public… is… deeply humiliating, violating, and defiling experience.”

The cities of Dearborn and adjacent Dearborn Heights on the outskirts of Detroit have the nation’s highest population of Muslims – a little more than 40 percent and growing. Many first came to Michigan at the start of the 20th century in search of jobs in the auto industry, and established roots, and more came after civil war broke out in Lebanon in 1975; same for present-day Iraqis. The Arab American National Museum is housed in Dearborn.