WASHINGTON – A Muslim US soldier, Sergeant Cesilia Valdovinos, wasallegedly forced to take her hijab off by her command sergeant major infront of her colleagues. She tagged it as “extremely hateful” behavior toher identity while planning to sue the US army for such indecent act.
Sergeant Cesilia Valdovinos is serving in the 704th Brigade SupportBattalion.
“I got called a terrorist. I got called ISIS,” Ms Valdovinos told Yahoo “Ihear comments that I’m the reason why 9/11 happened. There’s a lot of angerand animosity.”
She said her brigade commander, Colonel David Zinn, gave her permission inJune 2016 to wear the hijab while in uniform.She filed a complaint withEqual Opportunity Office in the army saying that her sergeant major pulledher off the rank and misbehaved with her pertaining to her religion andidentity.
“I felt embarrassed and religiously raped in a sense,” Ms Valdovinos saidin an email to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), anon-profit advocacy organization dedicated to religious freedom.
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“My religious preference is only to unveil in front of my husband in thecomfort of my own home,” she added.
In an official complaint to the Military Equal Opportunity Office (MEO), MsValdovinos alleges that she was removed from her post as a “culinary artsspecialist” because she had a “religious preference to not handle pork.”She also reported that she was referred to as “the girl with the hood” byher sergeant among other incidents.
Although the MEO complaint was reportedly considered to be“unsubstantiated,” Ms. Valdovinos is now planning on taking legal action,according to international news website, against the US Army for denyingher religious rights protected under the First Amendment.
