Friday, January 24, 2003

Photo ID Hijinks Alert!
Local 6 News in Florida presents another chapter in a continuing saga - Muslim Woman Sues To Get Florida ID Card:
A Muslim woman in Winter Park, Fla., who refused to remove her veil for a driver's license photograph last year is suing the state of Florida again.
Everyone needs a hobby.
Sultaana Freeman, 35, filed a civil lawsuit Wednesday after the state's Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles refused to issue her a state identification card.
But Sultaana has been around this block before.
Freeman was originally allowed to wear her veil, which only reveals her eyes, to obtain a Florida driver's license. However, the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles discovered her veiled face in a post-Sept. 11 check of its driver's licenses database.

When officials requested that Freeman take a driver's license photo without the veil, she refused. She said her religious beliefs dictated that she should not show her face to strangers or men outside her family. She also said that her constitutional rights were violated.
...
Freeman, who is an American-born converted Muslim, will go to trial in April for another lawsuit which seeks the reinstatement of her driver's license with a veil.
There's purportedly a picture of Sultaana with the article. But it's kind of hard to tell if it is really her. It's her old driver's license photo.