Muslim inmates charge Arkansas with violating their religious liberty
One Muslim prisoner had his religious accommodations taken away when he protested the combined services with the Nation of Islam and Nation of Gods and Earths, groups that follow distinct religious teachings.
Muslim prisoners in Arkansas have sued the state’s prison system for requiring them to attend a combined Friday prayer service with members of the Nation of Islam and Nation of Gods and Earths, groups that follow distinct religious teachings.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights advocacy group, filed the lawsuit in March against the Arkansas Department of Correction on behalf of maximum-security inmates Gregory Houston Holt, Rodney Martin, and Wayde Stewart. The suit argues that Arkansas has violated the First Amendment and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.
In 2015 Holt, known as Abdul Maalik Muhammad after his conversion, successfully challenged the Arkansas prison system’s no-beard policy, which the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled was unconstitutional. In the current case, CAIR told the federal court that when Muhammad stopped going to the prison’s combined Friday services in protest, his other Muslim faith accommodations were taken away.
