Denied a head scarf, Muslim inmate claims rights violated

An observant Muslim woman in the Harris County Jail is being denied access to traditional head covering and sleeves, a violation of her religious rights, according to her lawyers.

Nadia Irsan, 31, is in jail awaiting trial on a charge of stalking, accused along with other family members of taking part in two fatal shootings in 2012 that authorities called “honor killings.”

“She’s Muslim, and her practice is for her to be covered,” said Jackie Carpenter, one of Irsan’s lawyers. “This is about how she’s being treated, and it’s a violation of her rights.”

Irsan and other members of her family have been convicted of fraud in federal court. After that case wrapped up last year, Irsan was moved to the Harris County jail to face state charges in the two shootings.

While in federal custody, according to her lawyers, she was allowed to have a hijab, a head covering, and sleeves to cover her arms, which are tenets of her faith. Those accommodations were taken away when she moved to the Harris County Jail, her lawyers said.

“We’ve been trying for the past two months to try to get her back to what she had when she was in federal custody,” Carpenter said. “We were told it was a security issue, but I don’t understand why it would be if it wasn’t a problem in federal custody.”

Carpenter, and another female attorney, have been meeting with Irsan instead of her primary attorney, Eric Davis, because it is against the woman’s faith to be seen without covering by men who are not family.

Davis and Carpenter, who are lawyers with Harris County’s Public Defender’s Office, said Wednesday they have been working for months with jailers on a solution.

They said jailers first took away the religious garb she had been issued in federal court and gave her a bedsheet to use as a hijab and socks to cut holes in to use as sleeves.

After she filed a complaint, according to her lawyers, those accessories were taken away and she was cited for destruction of county property for cutting up the socks.

“It goes to the foundation of what this country was founded on,” Davis said. “It’s part of her worship. It’s analogous to a Christian having their Bible taken away.”

Ryan Sullivan, a spokesman for the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, said on Wednesday that the sheriff’s administration was not aware of the situation until questions were raised by the Houston Chronicle.

“We’re going to be remedying the situation and providing accommodations for her,” he said. “We’re going to figure out a solution for her.”

Irsan is part of a Montgomery County family ac-

cused in two fatal shootings.

Irsan, her father, Ali Mahwood-Awad, and his wife and adult son are accused of gunning down his daughter’s husband and her best friend, Iranian activist Gelareh Bagherzadeh, in shootings months apart.

Nadia Irsan is accused of putting a GPS tracker on her sister’s car and driving, on a daily basis, to the apartment where her sister and husband, Coty Beavers, lived. Those trips allegedly continued until the day Beavers was gunned down in the Harris County apartment in November 2012.

The father blamed Bagherzadeh for encouraging his daughter to stray from the faith.

If convicted, Nadia Irsan faces a maximum of 10 years in prison for the third-degree felony. Prosecutors have said the law may allow the state to expand the charges if Nadia Irsan is accused of helping her father commit capital murder — the charge he is facing.

Nadia Irsan’s mother is charged with murder, accused of helping Ali Irsan shoot Bagherzadeh in January 2012 through the passenger window of her vehicle as she drove to her parents’ home.

Last year, the father was sentenced to almost four years for his role in defrauding the Social Security Administration for more than a decade and ordered to pay $290,651 in restitution.

His wife, Shmou Ali Alrawabdeh, and Irsan were convicted of providing false statements to authorities about the fraud scheme. They each received 24-month federal sentences.

According to court documents and testimony, Ali Irsan applied for Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, benefits in 2002 by claiming that he was disabled and had been unable to work since 1990. His wife also claimed a disability and began to receive benefits in 2005.