The Mohammeds

The freedom to practice our own religion, in our own way, is one of our basic rights. It was the reason this country was originally founded and it has been the foundation of many lawsuits, orders, amendments, changes, arguments, joy and progress over the years. There are a few legal restrictions, but not many. If a person decided he wanted to start a Church of Holy Auburn Dissection in which the main belief is the drawing and quartering of people with red hair, his church and his beliefs would most likely not be allowed. But for the most part our government is very tolerant of beliefs and opinions that are stated in the name of Religion.

It is much the same in the jails and prisons. Inmates and prisoners have a right to practice their religion, within limits. If the religion is sanctified, organized and has a base in some sort of Higher Power, jails and prisons are expected to do as much as they can to allow those followers to practice the ideals, services, diets and other cultural aspects of their belief. If an Hassidic Jew comes into jail and states he cannot eat pork, the jail must provide him kosher, pork-free meals. Catholics must be offered a substitute for red meat on Fridays, Native Americans cannot be forced to cut their hair, Islamics cannot be served beef, etc. One questions what a true Hassidic, Catholic or Islamic would be doing in jail in the first place, as well as a Native American who followed his tribe’s traditions and beliefs.

On the other hand, Vegetarianism is not a religion, it is a choice, and so the Vegetarian must make do with whatever meals are served to him or her and choose what he or she wants from the tray. It’s a fine line sometimes, but if jail and prison dieticians had to fix special meals for everyone who did not like fish or believed peanut butter was an alien plot to gum up the brains of our youth (yes, I ran into that once) they would be creating trays twenty-four hours a day and the cost would be astronomical.

Satanism and Witchcraft (Wicca) are tough ones in the jails. They are very organized religions with many followers and for reasons that seem somewhat obvious to me, they are popular among the drug-using crowd. They are not, however, recognized religions, at least not within the framework of law enforcement. Satanists scare the Hell out of other people. And the fear factor in a jail is high enough without adding a circle of men with blankets over their heads, mumbling Gregorian chants at midnight. Hence, the practice of Satanism is not allowed in the Yavapai County jail, although there are a number of inmates whom I have come across who profess to being Satanists.

The other, more recent phenomenon is Odinism. This is popular among the White Supremists and stems from ancient Celtic and Viking times when Odin ruled with his lightening bolts and Druids partied in the woods under big rocks. I’m not sure how White Pride fits in with Druids and Celts but somehow they have evolved into a pseudo-match. At any rate, some of the Odinists we have had in jail claimed to be Vegetarians by religion. So have some who follow other, better known religions, but unless it can be proved in their church’s bylaws, the jail considers it a preference and they get meat just like everyone else.

So into the picture, one fine day, came the Federal order that Yavapai County was going to play temporary host to twenty-eight Islamics who were being held by INS (Immigration & Naturalization Services) for the purpose of deporting them back to the Middle East. This was in the days before terrorists were running rampant and we had no colored code for daily terrorist activity. These deportees were not considered to be exceptionally dangerous. They were not mad bombers or carriers of anthrax; they were simply here, in the USA illegally and had been involved in some sort of criminal activity that got them noticed. Typically it had to do with drugs or some sort of fraudulent schemes.

The INS had been extremely careful in the process of identifying and tagging these men. Every one of them was named Mohammed-Something. There was Mohammed Nassim, Mohammed Ismeal, Mohammed-Jamal, Mohammed Al-Duran, well, you get the picture. On top of that they were all slender, had black facial hair and seemed to be the same age. We had a booking area full of white-robed identical men who shared the same first name: Mohammed.