Face of Nation : Claiming a Montreal police officer removed a Muslim woman’s hijab and prayer robe without her permission, the Quebec Human Rights Commission is seeking to have the force ordered to update its search policies to better accommodate religious minorities.
According to documents filed by the commission in a case it’s bringing before the Human Rights Tribunal of Quebec, the police intervention — which it describes as “filled with prejudices associating Arab and Muslim people to terrorism” — took place in November 2014 and unfolded before several witnesses.
At the time of the incident, Aicha Essalama was visiting Montreal from Morocco to spend a month with her adult son. The two were on their way back from Friday prayers at a mosque in Laval when police patrollers circled their car.
A Montreal police detective had called Essalama’s son earlier that day to inform him an arrest warrant had been issued against him. He had missed a court hearing in a domestic abuse case in which he was later acquitted.
Her son had asked the detective if he could drop his mother off at home before meeting police away from his house, but the two were circled by patrol cars before making it there.
More than a dozen police officers then rushed out of their cars with their guns pointed at the pair, the legal brief alleges.
“Frightened and panicked,” it continues, Essalama exited the car and tried to run toward her son’s house. Using a loudspeaker, officers told her to get back in the car and place her hands on the dashboard.
Her son was arrested and placed in a police car. Essalama was then asked to get out of the car, where an officer cuffed her hands behind her back.
During the ensuing search, the commission’s lawyers contend, a Montreal police officer asked Essalama if she had any knives or weapons on her, then removed her shoes, abaya and hijab without her permission. The officer then lifted Essalama’s sweater, revealing her stomach and bra, before patting her down and searching through her hair.
“The intervention taking place in the street, the neighbourhood residents, some who were on their balconies, watched the scene,” the document says. “Having found nothing,” it continues, the officer removed Essalama’s handcuffs, gave her back her abaya and hijab and then apologized.
“At no time before, during, or after the search does the SPVM inform the victim of the reason for the police intervention, the reasons for her detention or for the search she was subjected to,” it adds.
For the commission to bring a case to the Human Rights Tribunal of Quebec, its lawyers need to have found a person’s complaint has some merit. In Essalama’s case, the commission argues the intervention violated several aspects of the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.
