- Tuesday, April 23, 2024
By: Pooja Shrivastava
A SIKH immigrant, who was forced to shave off his beard in an Arizona prison, has called on the US Justice Department to investigate the matter as an infringement of religious freedom.
Surjit Singh is serving his sentence of five years in prison for manslaughter in a case from a 2017 fatal vehicle accident and is currently incarcerated at the Whetstone Unit in Tucson operated by the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry (ADCRR).
In his complaint, the 64-year-old has alleged that ADCRR officials forcibly shaved his religiously mandated beard without giving him the opportunity to object, even as he claimed they were aware of his limited English proficiency and that his native language is Punjabi.
According to the complaint, at one point during his ordeal, Singh told them to “cut my throat, but don’t cut my beard!”
The complaint further mentions that the only assistance he got during the ordeal was from “ADCRR staff member who spoke Hindi, not Punjabi.”
“[ADCRR] has failed to provide adequate language assistance, thereby denying him meaningful access to prison programs and services,” said the 11-page complaint filed by attorneys with the Sikh Coalition, the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, the ACLU National Prison Project and WilmerHale LLP.
Calling it an “egregious incident”, the advocacy groups said the incident caused Singh “deep shame and mental trauma, including severe depression” as he had never cut, shaved, trimmed, or otherwise removed his hair.
“Forcibly shaving his beard, which he had previously maintained unshorn his entire life, clearly violated his rights under RLUIPA (Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act), as did threatening to shave him again after his intake in accordance with the prison’s one-inch beard limitation policy,” the complaint said. It added that the ADCRR’s facial hair policies most likely violate the rights of many other prisoners whose faith requires them to maintain a beard.
Sikh men are required to wear external articles of faith, and the most commonly maintained article is unshorn hair covered by a turban and facial beard. However, the ADCRR requires prisoners to shave any facial hair before having their photo taken during the intake process to facilitate a clean picture for the ‘Mug Photo Interface Subsystem’.
