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| Rockland county jail to hire imam after controversy |
| 2007-05-09 |
| The Rockland County jail will hire a Muslim imam and is providing ritually correct food to inmates in the wake of allegations of discrimination following the jail chaplain's distribution of anti-Islam tracts. The imam will work one day per week at $22 per hour and as needed additionally for special cases. The jail's contracted priest and rabbi work under the same terms, Undersheriff Thomas Guthrie said yesterday. Teresa Darden Clapp, an ordained Christian minister and the jail's chaplain, was suspended with pay last month after passing out religious cartoon booklets that condemned Islam and contained derogatory depictions and descriptions of Allah and the Prophet Muhammad. Jail officials ordered the tracts removed when they learned of the incident after an inmate complained. Since then, local Muslims have met with jail officials to discuss their concerns, alleging that when they tried to come to the jail to minister to inmates, they were treated unfairly by Clapp. Clapp has not commented publicly about the incident, and has not responded to messages left for comment. A woman who identified herself as Clapp called the county's Human Rights Commission last month and denied any wrongdoing. The county requested an independent investigation into Clapp's actions by attorneys Kevin J. Plunkett and Darius P. Chafizadeh of the firm Thacher, Proffitt and Wood in White Plains. Plunkett, who is in charge of the investigation, said the probe would be completed shortly. "We will be issuing a report and recommendation," he said. Mohammed Ziaullah, a member of the Islamic Center of Rockland who has been among local Muslims to meet twice with jail officials, said he was pleased about the progress of the investigation and by the jail's hiring of an imam and its procurement of a halal - or religiously acceptable -food vendor. Jail Chief William Clark said last month that the jail did not have an imam because the funds were not in the budget, adding that the jail was not serving inmates halal meals because the vendor who used to supply the food had gone out of business. Inmates instead were served kosher meals, which were considered an acceptable substitute by the state. The local Muslim community had called for Clapp's dismissal after the accusations came to light. People remained interested in the outcome of the investigation, Ziaullah added. At the mosque, "they keep asking us, 'What happened to the chaplain?' They're interested," the Chestnut Ridge man said. "They were saying, 'We want to protest in front of the jail.' I said, 'This is not necessary now; let's see what the outcome of this is.' |
| Posted by:ryuge |