ACLU seeks group prayer for jailed American Taliban and al Qaeda financier

This case covers all types of jihad. Lindh was captured on the battlefield – fighting for Allah, physical jihad (qital). Arnaout was caught funding (alms) those who fight on the battlefield through his Islamic charity. Zakat payments by Muslims to that charity actually went to fund al Qaeda. Then there is the ACLU defending both of these convicted terrorists – the insidious stealth jihadists.

INDIANAPOLIS — American-born Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh and another Muslim inmate have asked a judge to order a federal prison to allow them and other Muslims in their highly restricted cell block to pray as a group, in accordance with their beliefs.

The American Civil Liberties Union last Thursday filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis for summary judgment on behalf of Lindh, 29, and Enaam Arnaout, 47, who claim that the prison’s policy restricting group prayer in the Communications Management Unit violates their religious rights. The ACLU contends there are no disputes over the facts of the case and that the law is on the inmates’ side, and asks the judge to rule in their favor.

Lindh, who is serving a 20-year sentence at the Terre Haute prison for aiding Afghanistan’s now-defunct Taliban government, wrote in a legal declaration that his religion requires him to pray five times a day, preferably in a group. “This is one of the primary obligations of Islam,” he wrote.

Praying in his cell is not appropriate, he said, because the Quran requires a ritually clean place for prayer and he is forced to kneel “in close proximity to my toilet.”

Lindh wrote that Muslims in the unit are currently being allowed to pray together once a day during Ramadan. At other times, the group prayers had been limited to once a week, court documents said.

The suit seeks class action status. Terre Haute associate warden Harvey Church testified in a deposition given in January that 24 of the 41 CMU inmates were Muslim.

The government says in court documents that there is no evidence that Muslims were confined to the CMU because of their religion and that most Muslims don’t adhere to the requirement of five daily prayers.

“Plaintiffs have shown … only six other Muslim inmates in the CMU who identify themselves as sharing the same views on daily congregate prayer as Plaintiffs,” government attorneys wrote.

Meanwhile, the government asked a federal judge in Washington, D.C., to dismiss a similar lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights that alleges conditions at the CMU at Terre Haute and another one in Marion, Ill., violate inmates’ religious and civil rights.

Background links added above, not in the original article via The Associated Press: John Walker Lindh seeks Ind. prison prayer ruling.