Surjit Singh was sentenced to five years in prison for manslaughter in a case from 2017. He was taken into custody on 21 August 2020 following his sentencing. Singh is currently incarcerated at the Whetstone Unit in Tucson operated by the ADCRR.
The sixty-four
year-old Sikh immigrant who was forced to shave his beard in an Arizona prison
has called on the US Justice Department to investigate it as an infringement of
religious freedoms.
The complaint
said that unless the Justice Department investigates the Arizona Department of
Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry (ADCRR) for this “misconduct and takes
immediate enforcement action, other ADCRR prisoners will suffer similar
violations of their rights.”
The complaint
was 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.
It alleges
that on 25 August 2020, the ADCRR officials forcibly shaved his religiously
mandated beard without giving him the opportunity to object, even as they were
long aware of Singh’s limited English proficiency and the fact that his native
language is Punjabi.
According to
the complaint, at one point during his ordeal, Singh said “cut my throat, but
don’t cut my beard!” But he was eventually handcuffed and his beard was cut.
“[ADCRR] has
failed to provide adequate language assistance, thereby denying him meaningful
access to prison programs and services,” the complaint said.
The 11-page
complaint said the only language assistance Singh received while being forcibly
shaved came “from an ADCRR staff member who spoke Hindi, not Punjabi.”
The complaint
said that the ADCRR “never provided Singh with a Punjabi-speaking interpreter;
nor has it provided translated versions of vital documents, such as the
prisoner handbook, rules, and procedures he is required to follow, or prison
forms he must fill out to make requests for religious accommodations and
physician appointments.”
As s a
result, the complaint said, Singh struggled to communicate with prison staff
and faced “difficulty in obtaining a turban.”
The lawyers
for Singh said that his treatment “has been nothing short of egregious”.
“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,” it
said.
It alleges
that the ADCRR’s facial hair policies likely violate the rights of many other
prisoners in the agency’s custody whose faith requires them to maintain a
beard.
They asked
the Justice Department to investigate these policies and their implementation.
“The DOJ
should take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that the ADCRR adopts a
clear, easy-to-follow religious accommodation process in connection with its
facial hair policies and that these and other key policies and documents are
translated for prisoners with limited English proficiency,” it demanded.
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