A Shi'a Passes As Sunni ___________________________ By Sandra Larriva and Veronica Zaragovia

(from page 2) “I don’t go to Jumah here because I don’t feel comfortable,” Chong said about the Friday prayer made in a quorum of at least five. When praying next to the Sunni inmates, he hears them making indirect comments about the Shi'a and prefers to pray inside his cell.

Inmates can pray next to Sunni-Wahabis or Salafis, two extremist Sunni groups that don’t consider Shi'a as Muslims, but they say that in doing so they risk hearing incendiary messages leveled against Shi'a.

“If you would ask me, ‘Do prisoners have the rights that they ought to have in this country’ I would say they do not,” said Michael B. Mushlin, prisoners’ advocate and professor of law at Pace University in New York.

Several Shi'a inmates in New York State have filed lawsuits against the Department, including Chatin in 2003, demanding a separate prayer room and the right to practice their religion, a right they claim is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

Chong said that even when he fills out the requisite paperwork to obtain permission to observe Shi'a holy days, his requests go unacknowledged by the Sunni chaplain. Chong is the only Shi'a facilitator at the prison, a position _ given to him by the Sunni chaplain. _____________________1 | 2 | 3 | 4