The Chicago Chapter of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Chicago) filed two complaints in Circuit Court on behalf of Mahmoud Yaqub, his wife, and two children. The Cook County Forest Preserve is being sued for religious discrimination because Yaqub and his family were denied admission to a swimming facility.
CAIR-Chicago filed two complaints in circuit court today against the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. The complaints were filed on behalf of a Muslim family that was barred from entering a children’s water park last year because of their clothing.
Complaints of discrimination were filed by a Muslim family against the Cook County Forest Preserve. The complaints claim that county employees at a public pool kicked a Muslim family out because of what they were wearing.
The Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed two complaints Wednesday in Cook County Circuit Court claiming employees at a public pool discriminated against a Muslim family from Lyons based on their attire.
The parents were not planning to swim, only to supervise their children, the lawsuit said. They had previously been admitted when not wearing swimsuits.
“A week later, I sent my sister to go to the water park,” Yaqub told WLS-TV, Chicago. “My sister doesn’t wear the Muslim veil on her head. She went in a running suit, or pajama. She wasn’t wearing swimming trunks. The same lady that denied us entry let my sister in with no problem.”
A Brookfield man filed two lawsuits against the Forest Preserve District of Cook County alleging that his wife was denied access to the Cermak Family Aquatic Center because she was wearing traditional Muslim dress.
Mahmoud Yaqub went to the aquatic center, which has a wading area, fountains and sprinklers, with his wife and two children.
Two lawsuits were filed Wednesday on behalf of a Muslim family which was allegedly barred from entering a Cook County recreational pool last year because of their clothing.
A Muslim family was wrongly denied access to an aquatic center in Lyons last summer when employees told them their clothing violated the facility’s rules, state officials said Friday. “This incident is a blatant example of anti-Muslim discrimination,” Christina Abraham, civil rights director for the Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement. “Everyone is entitled to the equal enjoyment of public places.”
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