LONDON (Middle East Eye) - A Muslim prisoner in the U.S. state of Georgia has filed a lawsuit challenging his detention facility’s refusal to provide him halal meals during the Muslim holy month of Ramadhan.
The lawsuit, filed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) on behalf of Norman Simmonds, accuses the DeKalb County Jail of effectively starving Simmonds and other Muslim detainees by denying them halal meals.
“At this point, DeKalb County Jail is basically starving Muslims detained at the facility and asking them to choose between their religion and sustenance,” Javeria Jamil, Cair-Georgia’s legal director, said during a press conference on Tuesday.
Simmonds is currently in pre-trial detention at the DeKalb County Jail just outside of Atlanta, Georgia.
Since the beginning of Ramadan, he has petitioned to receive halal meals but was denied because the prison’s chaplaincy needed to “confirm the devoutness of his beliefs before they could approve a halal diet for him”.
During Ramadhan, Muslims fast from dawn till dusk, abstaining from eating, drinking, smoking and sexual relations to achieve greater consciousness of God.
According to the lawsuit, the jail has consistently failed to provide Simmonds, and other Muslims in his cell block, with meals at a time that would allow them to eat outside of their daily fasts - from after sunset to before dawn.
For three days during Ramadhan, he received no food at all. According to the lawsuit, he has lost 15 pounds since the being incarcerated and it is dangerous because of Simmonds’ pre-existing conditions including asthma, hypertension, and degenerative joint disease.
Murtaza Khwaja, Cair-Georgia’s executive director, said that a lack of clocks within the prisoners’ cells denies them the ability to know when they can start and end their fasts.