 My name is Fath MacBall. You missed the beginning of the presentation. I was the civil rights attorney for care back in 2013 to 2015, but before I took some time off to take care of my kids. I'm now the immigrant rights attorney, but I'm so happy to be presenting a New York rights presentation on religious accommodations for incarcerates during Ramadan. And just really quickly, there's a little disclaimer, the material covered in this presentation is intended to educate and does not constitute legal advice. Viewers should not act on the information provided without seeking any professional legal counsel, neither transmission or receipt of these materials creates an attorney-client relationship between the author and the receiver. And basically, this is just to let you know that we'd love to hear from you personally about your personal situation. Please visit the CARES FBA website. In the corner, there is a little report and incident button that you can use in case you need more information about how to help a particular person that you have in mind, whether they're incarcerated or not. We have some more New York rights presentations coming up this week, so do check them out. And this is just a small, short presentation, especially with Ramadan coming up. Those who are incarcerated may want to observe and practice during Ramadan. The thing about faith, this is not monolithic. And just because you weren't practicing or weren't reading the Maas before Ramadan doesn't mean that you can't start now. And I apologize, the Maas is the word for prayer and I might use that interchangeably. We want you to be aware of the rights of those who are incarcerated and also be confident that these rights are rooted in the law. I won't be talking a lot about the particulars of the law. They're there on the screen if you want to read them, but more so about just the different pieces of religious observation that might come into play during Ramadan. So some of the complaints that the office received has been about hijab not being allowed to pray, whether it's your five daily prayers, Juma or Thayawih, which are the nightly prayers that happen during Ramadan extra. They're called super obligatory in some religious circles, but basically extra prayers that some people do consider part of their faith. The thing about, like I said before, faith is not monolithic, and so you might find that you may believe a little bit differently than someone else, but you're also Muslim and you're entitled to your own particularly sincerely held religious beliefs. Generally, facilities are supposed to accommodate Muslims' requests for prayer, even for things like dates, because they have religious significance in the month of Ramadan, meals for Sahur and Iftar at those particular timings, the allowance to pray Thayawih, and then of course for Eid na Mas. We'll get into the specifics about meal accommodations. Those happen to be very particular aspects of the law that have been tried and tested, and there's a particular language that comes along with the understanding of what the meals need to entail, and we'll go a little bit over that. And then of course I mentioned prayer, and then we can talk and discuss a little bit about some of the success stories that we've had at CARE, and not only at the CARES FBA office, but up and down California. So for those of you who are not Muslim, Ramadan is a month of the Islamic calendar. Interestingly enough, it's not one of the four what are considered holy religious months, but it is a month in which Muslims all over the world observe their faith outwardly, and other people take notice, right? They're people who are fasting at school, at offices, and yes indeed in presence and correctional facilities. While it's common for Muslims to do things a little bit differently during Ramadan, again religious beliefs while they may be shared, when we're talking about the rights of those who are incarcerated, it's the sincerely held religious belief of the person, which may look a little bit different from everyone. Again if you're Muslim, you know that fasting and reading thoroughly are considered pious acts, and people take great care not only to abstain from obviously food and drink, but also other things like swearing, smoking, drinking gum, drinking water. A lot of people are very surprised to find out that even water is not allowed for those who fast, but those who are sick, elderly, they don't, they're excused from fasting. They pay a fidia and their fasting is excused. Fidia is a predetermined amount of money that you pay when you can't fast, and there are other things that are related to payment for when you break a fast, but we won't be getting into that here, and you can certainly look those things up online. And again for those of you who are not Muslim, fasting is, you wake up, you eat a meal before the dawn. Some people say it's up until the, when you hear the adhan, which is the call to Fajr prayer in the morning. The adhan is called to prayer, but in the morning it would be the Fajr prayer, the early morning prayer, pre-dawn prayer that you can eat. A lot of people take care to eat things that will help them go the distance during that day, so that's actually of particular importance to those who are incarcerated because whatever equivalent, whatever equivalent of meals that they're getting throughout the day, they would want to get at the morning sahur before they start their fast, right, and then when they break their fast, if not. So we'll get into that language as we move through the presentation. Of course, Muslims, generally speaking, they don't eat pork or pork fry products, and so the meals do have to accommodate that. Again, as I discussed, religious practice is not always the same, and so some people require that their meat is hand slaughtered. Again, the prisons or correctional facilities need to facilitate that. And like it says on the bottom, someone who knowingly, and that's really important work knowingly, denies a prisoner, his religious diet is in violation of the First Amendment, freedom of religion, and is not entitled to qualified immunity. So qualified immunity is something that someone would use as a defense to, we don't have to give you that right. So that person, if they knowingly denied someone who was incarcerated, any of these accommodations that we've talked about, they would be in violation of the First Amendment. And, you know, we're not the only community that fast. So fasting is also undertaken by some Christian communities, Jewish communities as well. So prisons are very familiar with fasting and what it entails, although for Muslims, it looks a little bit different as we've discussed. And, let's see, and if it's of any use of knowledge, so Jews observe fasting in the Jewish New Year, ending in Yom Kippur, and they also abstain from food and beverage, but also work in sexual relations, like Muslims also do that. And then also those who identify as Roman Catholic or Christians, other types of Christians, they observe a period of fasting known as Lent, where they give up something. I had a friend in high school who gave up candy for Lent one year. So again, prisons aren't familiar with this, this shouldn't be new to them. But if you are requesting an accommodation on behalf of a family member, it may be wise for you to also know some of the other observations, so that way you can buttress a claim if you have one, right? So Ramadan meal service, these are some of the laws that support the basis for someone requesting what's called like a Ramadan meal service. And essentially what makes it a Ramadan meal service is that it's just being offered, food is being offered at a non-usual time in the schedule, right? For Sahur or for Ifda. And obviously, Muslims have made requests for halal meals throughout the year, not just in Ramadan. And those have been satisfied. And there's a note at the bottom about administrative need for like signups and things like that. And at the end of the day, what you have to know is that the prison can you or the correctional facility can use what's at their disposal to help them organize, right? But it can't be like a signup sheet for six months ago or five months before Ramadan unit starts, right? But signup sheets may be a part of how they organize this. And so what we are hoping is is that community members and their family members who are incarcerated or if they're friends, you can support those who are incarcerated by understanding that they do have to work with the prison in order to get these rights, right? But it can't be anything that is burdensome, something that really doesn't help facilitate this. But in actuality is used as a means to prevent people from getting the accommodation that they desire. And something that the presenters of this Know Your Rights webinar wanted to make sure that those who are watching understand is that it's an incarcerated's right to practice as a religion and not secured by the US Constitution. So it's ingrained in the federal law, it's ingrained in this thing called the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Person Act, RLU, AIPA. And these rights have also been codified in California state law and facility policies. There are definitely a lot of different citations throughout the presentation that support this. And let's go forward. And in terms of fasting, we've already been through this, right? And there's a lot of language in this presentation that is must and should. And this is just to make you aware of what are your rights. However, in working with the prisoners or the facilities, perhaps there's a Muslim chaplain on board. We definitely would want to soften the language, right? Of course, these are your rights, but the way that we go about them and achieving them is different from how they're showing up on this presentation. And so we would absolutely be honored to help anyone with a request. Should they need it? We've done these before, we've been successful before. And should you have a family member or friend who needs us to make a request on their behalf? Because they're not getting these things, they're not getting time to pray or dates or Iftar or Sahur or, you know, any of it or some of it or none of it. We were here to help. Please, please go to our website and please report anything that you see that is does not align with what we're presenting today. And at the end of the day, what we want everyone to understand is that refusing these pieces, in essence, are refusing big practices of Ramadan and it's against the law and it shouldn't be done. And so if you're aware that a prisoner is not getting these rights, please talk to us, we'd love to. So this is all right here. I think it would be a service for me to just read this off the slide and I have mentioned this. The one piece that I haven't talked about is that there may be some, um, there may be those who are incarcerated who also have another medical condition that requires them to have a particular kind of meal and that also should be taken care of by the facility. And in addition to that, there may be some Muslims who because of their health or because of their age are not going to fast and that shouldn't impact another person, another incarcerated person's ability to fast or to participate in what they feel are meaningful activities during Ramadan in conjunction with their own sincerely held religious beliefs. As I mentioned earlier in the presentation, yes, Islam is practiced by billions of people, but at the same time, everyone's practice looks a little bit different and just because someone is doing something differently doesn't mean that another person has to do it the same way as them. And so the prisoners and the person who's incarcerated their particular health, their allergies, their own ideas of what the fasting means to them, when it should be broken, when it should be done, those need to be taken into consideration. But as you see on the slide, there should be a conversation about this, there should be knowledge about this, and that ultimately this shouldn't be a bar to getting your accommodation request satisfied. Let's see, I like mentioned illnesses. Again, the individuals sincerely held religious beliefs, they're in charge of that, right? So it's up to the individual person if they want to fast or not, if they want to read thoroughly or not, if they want to participate in these activities or not. This is not, everyone has to do it the same way. And prisons and even facilities like schools and different things, everyone needs to be aware of them. So yeah, I think what's most surprising for community members to know when we do presentations like this is that things like dates are part of, you know, the religious significance of the month of Ramadan and prison should have access to them. Things like Eid al-Mas, Congressional prayers, this is like, in addition to Juma prayers, right? These are things that should be accommodated. So if you are, if you know someone who's again, who wants these rights and are not getting them, please contact us. We'd love to help anyone who wants these accommodations and especially during Ramadan, coming up, this is very important. And COVID restrictions, some of them are easing up now. And so I don't know if this will be a particular concern. But of course, any restrictions that are in place so that COVID doesn't spread, those need to be narrowly tailored. And Muslims shouldn't be, it shouldn't be that Muslims are a disfavored of their other religious groups. Actually, like I mentioned, for many religious groups during this time will also be fasting. And so it's a clue to us if a particular faith is being accommodated, but Muslims are not, right? And so it's all things to mention to us if, should you have a problem. We, again, I've mentioned that we've sent out letters to all the different correctional facilities and prisons, making them aware of dates of Ramadan for this year. And so they all do have that knowledge at their hands. And hopefully no one should have problems getting accommodations this year. And again, I've mentioned that this is not just for Ramadan, this is for the whole year. So I talked about this as well, dates are part of religious significance. And if the correctional facility has a Muslim chaplain that that is amazing, and they definitely should be coordinating with them to help provide an opportunity for prayer and a holiday meal for Eid. We hope that our incarcerated brothers and sisters, of course, our prayers are with them. And we hope that their Ramadan is just as successful as ours. Like I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation, Care California, which means offices in San Diego, LA, San Francisco Bay Area, and then Sacramento and the Valley. They've all have been requesting prisoner accommodations for years and have been granted. We've even there have even been some lawsuits that have been successful. And so again, we encourage anyone who needs help with these particular issues, please do reach out to us. We're so happy to help and we want to make sure that every incarcerated Muslim brother and sister has a very successful. And that's it. And since there's no one here, I don't think there's going to be any questions and answers. But I'm hoping to just, if it's okay, just do a little du'a since we're so close to Ramadan. And it's just a prayer that we're asking God, Allah, that we may, you know, reach Ramadan. So I'm just going to read it off my phone. Oh, Allah, let us reach Ramadan. I really support you. And I hope that this information has been useful. And again, we really encourage anyone who has incarcerated family members or friends who are concerned that their friend or family member is not receiving any of these accommodations. Of course, this presentation is here, you have all the rights, we'd be happy to help in any way that we can. And with that, our civil rights team is actually an team and Ali, who is the legal services coordinator, Brown suit, who's our paralegal for both. And it's been always also our legal services coordinator for both our civil rights and immigration rights team. And so it's a brown suit. And then Jeffrey Wing is our civil rights attorney. So they would be happy to help in any of the reasonable accommodation requests that you would like to make. Thank you so much for spending some time with me. And I really appreciate your patience. And that's the end of the presentation. So thank you so much.