New York inmates are suing to watch the solar eclipse after state orders prisons locked down
![]() 3654 Saturday, 06 April, 2024, 21:30 Inmates in New York are suing the state corrections department over the decision to lock down prisons during next Monday’s total solar eclipse. The suit, filed Friday in federal court in upstate New York, argues that the April 8 lockdown violates inmates’ constitutional rights to practice their faiths by preventing them from taking part in a religiously significant event. The plaintiffs are six men with varying religious backgrounds who are incarcerated at the Woodbourne Correctional Facility in Woodbourne. They include a Baptist, a Muslim, a Seventh-Day Adventist and two practitioners of Santeria, as well as an atheist. “A solar eclipse is a rare, natural phenomenon with great religious significance to many,” the complaint reads, noting that Bible passages describe an eclipse-like phenomenon during Jesus’ crucifixion while sacred Islamic works describe a similar event when the Prophet Muhammad’s son died.The celestial event, which was last visible in the U.S. in 2017 and won’t be seen in the country again until 2044, “warrant gathering, celebration, worship, and prayer,” the complaint reads. The lawsuit states that one of the named plaintiffs, an atheist, received special permission last month to view the eclipse using glasses that would be provided by the state, but that was before the system-wide lockdown was issued. |
US May Include Long-Range Missiles in Ukraine Aid Package: Axios
14521:48Turkey originally proposed the idea․ #MiddleEastEye
14318:36Two Azerbaijanis suspected of killing SBU colonel killed in Ukraine
37913:40Macron's wife to appeal acquittal of women who claimed that she was born a man
24512:52Russian FSB arrests police chief Musaev
29911:52Ongoing wildfires on day nine | Cutting roads and threatening homes in Latakia (video)
56812.07.2025, 10:46Protesters in Brazil burn an effigy of Trump against new tariffs (video)
58611.07.2025, 20:17Iranian woman of Armenian descent arrested in the US
81611.07.2025, 13:22