A Muslim woman, and human rights lawyer has taken her accusations of NYPD’s abuse and racism to court, following her violent detention over blocking the sidewalk after a pro-Palestinian demonstration in New York.
The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday, with Chaumtoli Huq stating that the policemen used “unreasonable and wholly unprovoked force,” the Telesur media outlet reported.
42-year old Chaumtoli Huq was arrested in July, right after the pro-Palestinian event, while she was waiting for her kids to use the WC. The police officer told her to keep moving.
"I'm not in anybody's way. Why do I have to move? What's the problem?" Huq asked the police.
Afterwards, police officer Ryan Lathrop and his partner, “without any legal basis, grabbed Ms. Huq, turned her and pushed her against the wall and placed her under arrest,” according to the lawsuit.
“At that point I didn’t know what was happening. I was just thinking, ‘What’s going on?’ and all of a sudden the officer flips me [around]…he [turns] my body and presses me against the wall of the restaurant. He shoved my left arm all the way and kept pushing it and handcuffed me. At that point I just like instinctively yelled ‘Help!’ because I was alone,” the woman recalls as cited by Gawker.
She also claims they went through her purse without probable cause.
What’s more, the suit alleges that the officer told Huq “in America, wives take the names of their husbands,” when he found out she had a different last name than her husband.
Huq then asserts that that her detention is “characteristic of a pattern and practice of the NYPD in aggressive over policing of people of color and persons lawfully exercising their First Amendment rights."
“My civil rights were violated. I think that I was treated differently because of being a woman. I think I was targeted once my husband left. I think that I was being targeted based on my religion and my race,” Huq told Gawker.
Eventually, Huq was charged with obstructing governmental administration, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, and there was an adjournment to review dismissal of the charges.
Huq has decided to use her experience to "raise awareness about over policing in colored communities of color. I want there to be a dialogue on policing and community relations."