The ACLU of Georgia Expresses Grave Concern at Reports of Denial of Access to Court in Douglasville to Muslim Women Wearing Headscarves

Calls for modification of the current policy to allow access to court for followers of all religious faiths 

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Azadeh Shahshahani, 404-523-6201, 919-389-5329, ashahshahani@acluga.org

Atlanta – The ACLU of Georgia today expressed serious concern about troubling reports of incidents at the Douglasville Municipal Court where Muslim women have been faced with the choice of removing their headscarves or the denial of access to court.  The ACLU of Georgia called on decision makers to seriously consider revision of the current policy in order to allow Muslim women and followers of other faiths who wear religious headgear access to court.

In the most recent incident, Lisa Valentine, also known by her Islamic name, Miedah, was arrested after Judge Keith Rollins of the Douglasville Municipal Court found her in contempt of court for refusing to remove her headscarf.  Valentine and other Muslim women have reportedly been refused access to the Douglasville Municipal Court, even after they have expressly conveyed to the court officials that the wearing of the headscarf is an expression of their faith. 

“Muslim women, like all people in the United States, should have the right to express their religious beliefs free from discrimination or the jeopardizing of other important rights,” said Azadeh Shahshahani, National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project Director for the ACLU of Georgia.  “We hope that authorities in Douglasville seriously consider the revision of the current policy in order to ensure that all residents regardless of their faith are able to access the courts.”

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HOLIDAY ACTION TO HIGHLIGHT THE INJUSTICES OF IMMIGRATION DETENTION IN GEORGIA

Movie screening, mass visitation and church service all focus on plight of immigrants detained at private, for-profit detention center located in southwest Georgia

Member advocates and organizations of the newly-formed Georgia Detention Watch are joining forces to plan a weekend of education, action, and reflection to highlight the inhumanity of the U.S. immigration detention and deportation systems in Georgia.  The weekend’s activities will highlight the conditions at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, located in rural southwest Georgia.  The Stewart Detention Center is a private, for-profit facility operated by the Correction Corporation of America (CCA), now detaining approximately 1,900 immigrants for an average of 45 days each.

On Friday, December 19 at 7 pm, Koinonia Partners (1324 Georgia Highway 49 South in Americus) will be hosting a free, public screening of the film, “The Visitor.”  The film offers viewers a glimpse of the rarely heard stories of lives and dreams shattered by the unjust U.S. detention and deportation systems.  Anton Flores of Alterna will lead a post-screening discussion. “We are disturbed to hear that Hall County Commissioners are considering partnering with CCA to open yet another relic of injustice, the North Georgia Detention Center,” said Flores.  “This weekend’s actions are designed, in part, to remind Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, executives at CCA and the members of the Stewart County Commission and Hall County Commission that we will not be silent to injustices committed against poor immigrants in order to line the pockets of county governments and corporations,” Flores charged.

The next day, Saturday, December 20, citizen and immigrant activists, attorneys and persons of faith from Atlanta, Americus, LaGrange and other Georgia communities will travel to the Stewart Detention Center to conduct humanitarian visitations of detainees who will likely spend the holidays in this isolated facility, far away from their families. 

Sunday morning will be a time when many Georgia residents gather for worship.  At the Americus Mennonite Fellowship, congregants have been encouraged to participate in the weekend’s events.  On the Sunday before Christmas, their worship service will be focused on immigrant detention in southwest Georgia.  “As many of us commemorate the birth of Jesus into a refugee family that, soon after his birth, would flee to Egypt, it is central, not only to Christianity, but to all world religions to show hospitality, not hostility, to the stranger,” stated Sanders Thornburg of Koinonia Partners and member of Americus Mennonite Fellowship.

Azadeh Shahshahani, National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project Director of the ACLU of Georgia, who will take part in the visitations on Saturday, further added: “Through these visits, we wish to remind officials at the Stewart Detention Center about their obligation to afford the detainees the protections due to them under constitutional and international human rights standards, such as the right to adequate and timely medical treatment.”

“Equally important,” concluded Adelina Nicholls of GLAHR, “these humanitarian visits serve to boost the morale of those immigrants held inside and to remind them that they are not alone in this holiday season.”

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Human Rights Day celebration event will be at 6:00 p.m. at the Auburn Avenue Research Library

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

 

CONTACT:

Azadeh Shahshahani, 404-523-6201, 919-389-5329, ashahshahani@acluga.org

Laura Moye, 404-452-8920, lmoye@aiusa.org

 

Atlanta – The Human Rights Atlanta coalition today celebrates the launch of an Atlanta-based human rights campaign on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).  The UDHR is a set of fundamental rights and protections that are to be enjoyed by all persons throughout the world by the virtue of their humanity.

 

Human Rights Atlanta, which is a broad coalition of human rights groups and advocates, wishes to highlight the obligations of U.S. and state and local governments under the UDHR and international human rights law, noting that the United States was a leading force in the creation of the UDHR. 

 

“It is high time that the U.S. government and the Georgia state and local governments recommit to the principles and ideals of the UDHR in ensuring dignity and justice for all,” said Azadeh Shahshahani, National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project Director of the ACLU of Georgia.

 

The coalition has presented dozens of events honoring the ongoing struggles for social justice, racial and gender equality, peace, and the full enjoyment of human rights by all.  The human rights campaign launched by Human Rights Atlanta will continue past December 10^th, highlighting local struggles.

 

“With such great promise for a new era in the U.S. for human rights, we are thrilled to join with Atlanta’s human rights community to celebrate the vision statement of our movement that remains relevant to those thirsting for dignity and justice sixty years later,” said Laura Moye, Deputy Director of the Amnesty International Southern Regional Office.

 

The Human Rights Atlanta coalition will host a celebratory event this evening on the occasion of Human Rights Day, featuring the Reverend C.T. Vivian as the keynote speaker.

 

“In celebrating UDHR 50 in 1998 and now UDHR 60, we’re carrying on a tradition of struggle for human rights that has a long history in Atlanta,” said Ian Fletcher, a member of the PH:ACTS people’s history collective. “From Dr. Du Bois and Dr. King to the black washerwomen who struck for their rights in 1881, the students who sat-in against Jim Crow segregation and defied the Klan in downtown streets in 1960, to the tens of thousands of immigrant workers who marched for dignity in 2006, our city has borne witness to a courageous tradition of struggle which will continue on.”

 

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