HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: National
June 6, 2003, 10:13PM
Her veil has to go for photo
Judge: Can't get license with it on
Los Angeles Times
MIAMI -- A Florida judge refused Friday to allow a Muslim mother and homemaker to obtain a
driver's license without removing her veil for the identification photo, saying it would set a
dangerous precedent that might be exploited by criminals or terrorists.
While acknowledging that the woman "most likely poses no threat to national security," state
Circuit Judge Janet Thorpe ruled that if full-face cloaks were permitted in driver's license photos,
some people might pretend "to ascribe to religious beliefs in order to carry out activities that
would threaten lives."
"It would be foolish not to recognize that there are new threats to public safety, including both
foreign and domestic terrorism," the Orlando-based judge said.
In a 16-page ruling, Thorpe declined the request of Sultaana Freeman, a 35-year-old mother of
two from Winter Park, that she be granted a driver's license after being photographed wearing
her niqab, a full-face veil that allows only her eyes to show.
During a three-day nonjury trial held in Orlando last week, Freeman testified that she is a devout
Muslim and that exposing her face to strangers or to men from outside her family violates her
religious beliefs.
Florida officials countered in Thorpe's court that law enforcement officials need the full-face
photos on driver's licenses to quickly and easily verify a person's identity, and the judge
concurred.
"The state has always had a compelling interest in promoting public safety," the judge said.
"That interest is served by having the means to accurately and swiftly determine identities."
The American Civil Liberties Union, which had provided Freeman with a lawyer, called Friday's
ruling an encroachment on individual liberties that would not make Americans any safer.
Freeman's attorney, Howard Marks, had said beforehand he would appeal any verdict against his
client.
"Today's ruling runs counter to the most basic principles of religious freedom that give everyone
-- including members of minority religious communities as well as majority Christian faiths -the right to practice and worship as they choose," Howard Simon, executive director of the
ACLU of Florida, said in a statement.
However, in her decision, Thorpe emphasized that Freeman wasn't being "singled out" because
she is a Muslim.
"This court would rule the same way for anyone -- Christian, Jew, Buddhist, atheist -- who
wished to have his or her driver's license identification photo taken while wearing anything -- ski
mask, costume mask, religious veil, hood -- which cloaks all facial features except the eyes," the
judge said.
Officials of the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles testified that they
offered to arrange a special photo session where Freeman could lift her veil while in a closed
room with only a female department photographer present. Thorpe said Freeman failed to
demonstrate in her lawsuit that accepting this would place a "substantial burden" on her religious
freedom.
Freeman, a Christian convert to Islam, did have a Florida driver's license with a photo showing
her clad in her veil, but the document was revoked in January 2002 when she refused to allow a
new picture to be taken that would reveal her uncovered face.