LONDON - A Muslim American civil rights group has filed a lawsuit against several officials of the Missouri prison system for allegedly pepper-spraying Muslim inmates while they prayed, according to the Middle East Eye.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the prisoners by the Missouri chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), accused the state's department of corrections officials of violating the inmates' constitutional rights, including to freely practice their religion.
According to the lawsuit filed last Thursday, 28 February 2021, a group of nine Muslim prisoners were praying in a common space when a corrections officer told them to stop.
The inmates say they had prayed together without issue three times earlier in the day and had also done so "hundreds of times in the months" prior.
In this instance, twenty officers responded to the scene. Two of the inmates stopped praying and stepped away, while another two men also stopped praying but were then put in handcuffs.
The five others were doused with pepper spray, some while they were handcuffed, and one prisoner was beaten, according to the lawsuit.