Muslim prisoners sue US jail for not providing halal food

Lawsuit states that the county provides kosher meals to Jewish prisoners but Muslims are not provided halal food

Four Muslim inmates and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida filed a federal lawsuit on Thursday challenging Miami-Dade County's refusal to provide halal food to Muslim inmates.

The lawsuit stated that the meal policy which is in place since October 2014 violates the rights of Muslim inmates to exercise their religion and appeals the court to strike it down, according to the Associated Press.

Read: Muslim prisoner can grow his beard: US Supreme Court

Further, it stated that the county provides kosher meals to Jewish prisoners but Muslims were required to eat a general population diet that did not meet religious standards that prohibit certain animals, requires animals to be slaughtered in a particular way and mandates that halal foods not come into contact with other foods.

Shalini Goel Agarwal, Staff Attorney at the ACLU of Florida, said, “Individuals do not lose their constitutional rights just because they are behind bars. When a particular diet is part of an inmate's religious practice, jails need to respect that -- especially when they already do so for inmates other faiths.”

Muslim inmate Juan Alvarez calling the meal policy 'unfair,' said, “I feel mistreated. It is unfair that MDCR accommodates the religious beliefs of non-Muslim inmates by fully accommodating the dietary requirements of their religion while ignoring the religious beliefs of Muslim inmates.”

Read: Why has there been a surge in Muslim prisoners in Britain?

A federal judge had ruled earlier in May that the law required Florida prisons to serve kosher meals to inmates who requested them for religious reasons. Court documents show that more than 9,500 Florida prisoners have been approved for the kosher meals. The program's estimated cost is $12.3 million annually.

This article originally appeared on Daily Mail