New York City agreed Friday to pay $17.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that alleged police officers forced two women to remove hijabs while mugshot photos were being taken. The case, filed in 2018, stemmed from the arrests of Muslim American women Jamilla Clark and Arwa Aziz. They alleged New York officers threatened them to remove their headscarves, and the two felt ashamed after being forced to do so, USA Today reports. “When they forced me to take off my hijab, I felt as if I were naked,” Clark said. “I’m not sure if words can capture how exposed and violated I felt.”
The settlement requires approval by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres. Clark and Aziz’s attorney, Andrew Wilson, said forcing someone to remove religious clothing is akin to a strip search. The women alleged the removal of their hijabs for booking photographs violated their First Amendment rights, as well as federal religious protections and state law. “This is a milestone for New Yorkers’ privacy and religious rights,” said Albert Fox Cahn of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, a civil rights group that provided legal representation for the women. “The NYPD should never have stripped these religious New Yorkers of their head coverings and dignity. This wasn’t just an assault on their rights, but on everything our city claims to believe in." In 2020, the police department changed its policy in response to the lawsuit, allowing people to be photographed with religious garb as long as their faces weren’t covered. Advocates supporting the lawsuit said the NYPD has practiced a policy of keeping mugshots as part of its facial recognition surveillance program.
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