Woman forced to remove hijab in jail settles for $120K

Published 7:12 am Wednesday, December 18, 2019

MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota Muslim woman has received $120,000 to settle her lawsuit alleging she was forced to strip in jail and remove her hijab for a booking photo over a traffic offense, the woman and her attorneys said Tuesday.

Aida Shyef Al-Kadi, of St. Louis Park, appeared with her attorneys at the Minneapolis headquarters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations to announce the settlement approved last month by U.S. District Judge John Tunheim.

Al-Kadi, 57, said her treatment at the Ramsey County jail in August 2013 was “one of the most humiliating and harmful experiences”of her life.

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“I knew that I did not want any other Muslim woman to experience what I did,” she said.

A judge had issued a warrant for Al-Kadi’s arrest after she missed a court hearing over a traffic offense while taking her daughter to the hospital, the Star Tribune reported.