Post by Okwes on Jul 15, 2007 16:11:09 GMT -5
Indian inmates' religious rights supported
By Judy Harrison
Thursday, March 08, 2007 - Bangor Daily News
AUGUSTA - Catholics, Protestants and Muslims joined representatives from Maine's tribes Wednesday in urging legislators to support a bill that would guarantee incarcerated American Indians the right to practice their religion.
The Legislature's Judiciary Committee heard testimony on LD 507, which would amend the Maine Human Rights Act to include the "accommodation of Native American religious practices or ceremonies" in state prisons and county jails. The MHRA currently outlaws discrimination in the areas of employment, housing, public accommodation, credit and education opportunity.
"This legislation is needed because the federal law has no bite to it," Rep. Donald G. Soctomah of Indian Township, the Passamaquoddy tribal representative who sponsored the bill, told the committee. "Prisoners have to sue to get their rights."
Denise Lord, associate commissioner for the Department of Corrections that runs state prisons, said her department supports the goals behind the bill, but suggested it might be included in the statutes that govern her department rather than the MHRA. She also suggested the language should cover all religions.
"My department is committed to moving forward on providing access to spiritual practices for Native Americans," she told the committee.
Lord said after the hearing that a federal lawsuit filed earlier this year in U.S. District Court in Bangor by Sacred Feather Native American Circle, a group of Indian inmates incarcerated at the Maine State Prison in Warren, has halted talks at that facility. The groups sued prison officials alleging that their constitutional rights to freedom of religion have been violated.
The group filed a similar lawsuit in 2003 that resulted in a settlement that included monthly smudging ceremonies but not the construction of a sweat lodge that prison officials have said poses potential security problems. That agreement expired in 2005 and the group refiled the lawsuit with a new attorney representing them.
Such action should not be necessary, Denise Altvater, director of the Maine Wabanaki Program American Friends Service Committee and a Passamaquoddy, told the committee.
"From its inception in 1870, the American Correctional Association has recognized and emphasized the role of religion in the correctional process as a primary rehabilitation tool to help reform prisoners, restore their values and prepare them to be productive members of society," she said.
"However, to this very day, the freedom of Native Americans to practice their traditional religious ceremonies in prison continues to be questioned in the courts and is notably absent from state legislation."
Altvater testified that the roots of the current clash were "embedded in the historical battle between Christian colonists and indigenous people." Indians are the only group of people in this country whose religious ceremonies were outlawed by the federal government, she said.
"Prisoners are people most of us would rather not think about and certainly not a group of people we want to grant privileges to," Altvater concluded. "Religious freedom is not a privilege; it is a basic, indisputable human right, inherent to human dignity which extends to all individuals in every segment of society."
David A. Ummah, a Muslim, supported the bill on behalf of Portland's NAACP chapter. He said that his decade in the military had shown him how American institutions could change.
"When I first went in in 1981," he said, "we had no Muslim chaplains and no space to pray. By the time I left, we had Imams and our right to daily prayer and to observe holidays such as Ramadan had been recognized."
Ummah also said that if the federal government could recognize that captured enemy combatants such as the prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have a right to practice their faith, then the state could and should recognize Indians' right to practice their religion.
Representatives of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, the Episcopal Diocese of Maine and the Allen Avenue Unitarian Universalist Church in Portland also supported the bill.
Indians make up a small percentage of state prison population. Of the 2,080 incarcerated, Lord said after the hearing, 47 identified themselves as American Indian.
Information about the number of Indians serving sentences at county jails was not readily available Wednesday.
Lord also said outside the hearing room that Indians request to hold many ceremonies outside and their use of fire and sweet grass had made accommodation of their religious practices more difficult than the accommodation of Christian, Buddhist, Muslim and other practices that can more easily be held in the prison's nondenominational chapel. Although guards are not in the chapel when services are being held, Lord said, two of its four walls are glass and guards can see what is going on inside and intervene if needed.
No one testified against the bill Wednesday
By Judy Harrison
Thursday, March 08, 2007 - Bangor Daily News
AUGUSTA - Catholics, Protestants and Muslims joined representatives from Maine's tribes Wednesday in urging legislators to support a bill that would guarantee incarcerated American Indians the right to practice their religion.
The Legislature's Judiciary Committee heard testimony on LD 507, which would amend the Maine Human Rights Act to include the "accommodation of Native American religious practices or ceremonies" in state prisons and county jails. The MHRA currently outlaws discrimination in the areas of employment, housing, public accommodation, credit and education opportunity.
"This legislation is needed because the federal law has no bite to it," Rep. Donald G. Soctomah of Indian Township, the Passamaquoddy tribal representative who sponsored the bill, told the committee. "Prisoners have to sue to get their rights."
Denise Lord, associate commissioner for the Department of Corrections that runs state prisons, said her department supports the goals behind the bill, but suggested it might be included in the statutes that govern her department rather than the MHRA. She also suggested the language should cover all religions.
"My department is committed to moving forward on providing access to spiritual practices for Native Americans," she told the committee.
Lord said after the hearing that a federal lawsuit filed earlier this year in U.S. District Court in Bangor by Sacred Feather Native American Circle, a group of Indian inmates incarcerated at the Maine State Prison in Warren, has halted talks at that facility. The groups sued prison officials alleging that their constitutional rights to freedom of religion have been violated.
The group filed a similar lawsuit in 2003 that resulted in a settlement that included monthly smudging ceremonies but not the construction of a sweat lodge that prison officials have said poses potential security problems. That agreement expired in 2005 and the group refiled the lawsuit with a new attorney representing them.
Such action should not be necessary, Denise Altvater, director of the Maine Wabanaki Program American Friends Service Committee and a Passamaquoddy, told the committee.
"From its inception in 1870, the American Correctional Association has recognized and emphasized the role of religion in the correctional process as a primary rehabilitation tool to help reform prisoners, restore their values and prepare them to be productive members of society," she said.
"However, to this very day, the freedom of Native Americans to practice their traditional religious ceremonies in prison continues to be questioned in the courts and is notably absent from state legislation."
Altvater testified that the roots of the current clash were "embedded in the historical battle between Christian colonists and indigenous people." Indians are the only group of people in this country whose religious ceremonies were outlawed by the federal government, she said.
"Prisoners are people most of us would rather not think about and certainly not a group of people we want to grant privileges to," Altvater concluded. "Religious freedom is not a privilege; it is a basic, indisputable human right, inherent to human dignity which extends to all individuals in every segment of society."
David A. Ummah, a Muslim, supported the bill on behalf of Portland's NAACP chapter. He said that his decade in the military had shown him how American institutions could change.
"When I first went in in 1981," he said, "we had no Muslim chaplains and no space to pray. By the time I left, we had Imams and our right to daily prayer and to observe holidays such as Ramadan had been recognized."
Ummah also said that if the federal government could recognize that captured enemy combatants such as the prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have a right to practice their faith, then the state could and should recognize Indians' right to practice their religion.
Representatives of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, the Episcopal Diocese of Maine and the Allen Avenue Unitarian Universalist Church in Portland also supported the bill.
Indians make up a small percentage of state prison population. Of the 2,080 incarcerated, Lord said after the hearing, 47 identified themselves as American Indian.
Information about the number of Indians serving sentences at county jails was not readily available Wednesday.
Lord also said outside the hearing room that Indians request to hold many ceremonies outside and their use of fire and sweet grass had made accommodation of their religious practices more difficult than the accommodation of Christian, Buddhist, Muslim and other practices that can more easily be held in the prison's nondenominational chapel. Although guards are not in the chapel when services are being held, Lord said, two of its four walls are glass and guards can see what is going on inside and intervene if needed.
No one testified against the bill Wednesday