A governmental oversight agency has determined that prison officials at an unnamed federal lock-up discriminated against Muslim inmates and sometimes punished them for reporting the mistreatment to authorities. In its semi-annual report to Congress released Friday, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Justice Department (DoJ) detailed that and numerous other findings of civil rights violations against Muslim detainees in the federal prison system. Additionally, the report says, government agencies have been slow to discipline offending officers in such cases.

In one investigation described in the report, the inspector found that prison officials did not grant Muslim inmates’ bed reassignment requests even when the inmates qualified and when the requests were related to fulfilling prayer requirements. At the same time, investigators found, prison authorities granted similar requests by non-Muslim inmates on a regular basis.

OIG investigators further found that at that same prison facility, which is nowhere identified in the report, the warden and prison staff "unfairly punished Muslim inmates who complained about the conditions of confinement or who cooperated with the OIG’s investigation." For instance, prison staff placed one inmate who complained in the Special Housing Unit for four months and transferred another inmate to the Special Housing Unit five days after he was interviewed by the OIG.

According to the OIG report, the US Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute this matter, so the oversight office referred it to the Bureau of Prisons for "administrative action."

In a separate investigation, the inspector general looked into allegations by two Muslim inmates who claimed they were forced to take heparin injections containing pig as part of their dialysis treatment, a violation of their religious practices. The IG found "several deficiencies in the medical center’s management of information and communications affecting the use of heparin for the inmates’ treatment."

The inspector general also reported to Congress that more than a year after the OIG found that some correction officers at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York "physically and verbally abused" some detainees, the Bureau of Prison officials are still merely "considering appropriate disciplinary action."

Some of the abuse at the Brooklyn facility -- which took place in the days and weeks following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks -- was caught on video, greatly enhancing the OIG’s investigation of the reported incidents. As previously reported by The NewStandard, a December 2003 report issued by the inspector general detailed how "some officers slammed and bounced detainees against the wall, twisted their arms and hands in painful ways, stepped on their leg restraint chains and punished them by keeping them restrained for long periods of time." In one of the more gruesome incidents caught on video, prison guards slammed detainees against a wall draped in an American flag T-shirt that read "These Colors Don’t Run."

Friday’s report also revealed that the Bureau of Prisons has provided more videotapes to the inspector general, containing "audio-taped meetings between detainees and their attorneys" at the Brooklyn facility. The OIG said it is investigating the content on the tapes as well as the reasons why the videos were not handed over sooner.

The OIG report also details some of the ongoing investigations currently looking into allegations of civil rights abuses, including the case of Brandon Mayfield, who was investigated and detained after the FBI apparently misidentified his fingerprint in connection with the March 2004 Madrid train bombing.

The Office is also looking into allegations made by an Egyptian national who alleges that he was subjected to an "invasive body cavity search in the presence of numerous people, including a female officer; placed alone in a cell under severe restrictions for more than two months; and had his ability to practice his religion undermined intentionally by the prison staff."

Bureau of Prisons officials defend their civil rights record on Friday. "We take all allegations of staff misconduct very seriously, and all are thoroughly investigated by BOP's office of internal affairs," Bureau of Prisons spokesperson Traci Billingsley told the Associated Press, though she said she had not seen the OIG’s report.

Friday’s report was the sixth of its kind, required semi-annually by a USA PATRIOT Act provision mandating that the DOJ Inspector General Office investigate allegations of civil liberties violations committed by Justice Department employees and to report the findings to Congress. The current report documents the activities between June 22, 2004, and December 31, 2004.