(AP) Muslim men who were praying together in their housing unit at a Missouri prison were doused with pepper spray, physically assaulted by corrections officers and then retaliated against when they complained, according to a lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday by the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Missouri and the CAIR Legal Fund against Missouri Department of Corrections officials and several employees of the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, Missouri.
“This lawsuit is about holding state officials to account and upholding the rights of all citizens,” Kimberly Noe-Lehenbauer, a CAIR civil rights attorney, said in a news release. “Once a person enters a correctional facility, they do not lose their most basic rights and become an open target for violence and abuse.”
